A novel of doubles, shadow worlds, and fractured timelines as a man disappears from a glittering Los Angeles party, and a woman—a gunrunner, an art collector, an operative of the State—searches for answers.
The plot here, like the plots in the previous three Mandel novels I've read, is ingenious, eerie and complex; but not so complex it dampens curiosity ... Mandel knows she doesn't have to belabor her topical social commentary: It's of an unsettling piece with everything else that's packed into the three parts of this capacious novel ... Also unexpectedly veers into an action-escape adventure ... Weird and arresting.
Terrific ... Puzzling it out as it unfolds is one of its many pleasures ... The story deepens and expands in unexpected ways, across generations, into marriages, betrayals and rare acts of decency. In the world of Exit Party, through all of its tragic turns, we find Mandel at her best.
Seamless ... Weakness for catchphrases is my least favorite thing about Exit Party and the Mandelverse in general. It speaks to an impulse to reduce the novels’ mysteries to accessible bromides. Still, the habit is in keeping with the book’s paradoxically optimistic tenor. Ari and her counterpart are smart, resilient, personable women who, for all their wrongdoing, have a gift for finding happiness in the midst of breakdown. The hope they represent is the stabilizing force that bridges Ms. Mandel’s enterprising fiction.
