The Lola Quartet

Superb. Lola had me gripped from beginning to end. Although a more conventional story than her more famous Station Eleven, all the potential of Mandel is evident here. I particularly liked the telling of the same events from multiple perspectives, both in terms of differing narrators and time horizons. If nothing else, the work highlights the significance of luck, what-ifs and if-onlys in how events turn out. At the heart of Lola is a tale of lost innocence, how mistakes made by impetuous and naive teenagers have enduring consequences more than a decade later. What price would you pay to protect your child? is the central dialectic around which the novel revolves. While there are no shortage of references to music, the other fascinating element of Lola is its commentary on a disintegrating America, a country of identikit malls and suburbs where vice (drugs, legal and less so) represent one possible way out. I liked the closure at the novel's end too. 10 out of 10.

By Emily St. John Mandel