Last Night in Montreal

I like travel, you like travel, but when does travel become compulsion? A running away from rather than a deeper involvement in life? In Emily St. John Mandel’s debut novel, Lilia Albert, abducted by her father at age seven, has constantly traveled for the past eighteen years even after her father settled down with his new wife in Arizona. For a brief interlude, she moves in with Eli, a New York student who has been working on a PhD on dying and lost languages. Eli is attracted to Lilia because she does things: takes photographs and explores the world while he and his friends just sit in coffee shops and theorize. But one day, Lilia moves on, and Eli follows her to a wintry Quebec after receiving a clue from Michaela. Although a stranger to Eli, Michaela has known about Lilia for most of her life: her father was the Canadian detective who trailed the father and daughter pair for years in the southwest U.S. In fact, Michaela’s life was in a sense ruined by Lilia—her dad essentially abandoned Michaela at home as a teenager after her mother deserted them in his quest for the missing pair. Now Michaela works as an exotic dancer and is Eli’s one link to his love. The novel veers between the present in a frigid dark Quebec to the past: the Brooklyn visit, odysseys in cheap motels and old cars with a faded map on the dashboard. The characters are unforgettable. The book pulses with escalating tension as it reveals secrets from both Michaela’s and Lilia’s past. Not a light or easy read but a compelling one.