Last Night in Montreal: A Novel

Eli doesn't realize that when Lilia leaves his Brooklyn apartment to go get the paper, she has left for good. Not until several hours later when he looks up from his graduate thesis does he realize she has disappeared. This is something Lilia has been doing since she was seven years old.Lilia had not seen her father for years until one night, when she is seven, he tosses ice at her window and her home in Montreal. She immediately goes outside into his arms and they leave forever. They never stay anywhere longer than a couple of days, traveling around the US. Lilia writes in each bedside motel bible, unknown to her father variations of this: "I am not missing. Stop searching for me. I wish to remain vanishing. I don't want to go home."Christopher Graydon is the private detective who becomes obsessed with finding her while neglecting his own daughter, Michaela.Lilia ends up in Montreal after leaving Eli and meets up with Michaela who then sends Eli a postcard to come get her. But she refuses to tell Eli where she is until her own agenda is met.my review: I LOVED this book. I thought it was meaningful and compelling. Lilia is a mysterious, tragic figure as is Michaela. Eli is caught up by both of their stories and this makes for a brilliant debut novel.I also found the discussion of Eli's thesis on endangered languages to be very interesting, enough so that I am looking for a book to read more about this. I also found the language laws of Quebec to be fascinating as I was unaware of this. I also love reading books that lead me to other books or interests.But Lilia's story is the driving force that kept me hooked: why did she leave with her father, why did he come get her, why even as an adult can Lilia not stop vanishing?This is another fairly short novel that tells an amazing story in less than 300 pages. Run out and buy this book, I highly recommend it!my rating 5/5

When Lilia was a small child, her father kidnapped her in the middle of the night and drove her across the Canadian border into the United States. They spent the next decade driving together, criss-crossing the US over and over, never staying in any one place for long, frequently changing their car, their appearances, and their names, fleeing the investigator undoubtedly following them.When Lilia was sixteen, her father met someone with whom he wanted to settle down, but Lilia was restless. Life on the road was all she knew; it’s what felt normal and right to her. And so she went off on her own, but checking in regularly with her father and his new wife.Last Night is a story about secrets and obsession, and about how they destroy lives. Chapters set in the current time alternate with chapters from the past. Questions—such as, why did Lilia’s father take her away?—remain unanswered until the very end of the book. Although everything is wrapped up in the end, this is not a story with a happy ending. It’s a masterfully-written book that will haunt you.

The premise is good - a young girl kidnapped by her father moves constantly until she is 16 years of age and learns to be happy only when she is leaving. There is a good counter story - a detective and then his daughter obsessed with finding the young girl, but then when he finds her, just follows her. There are several secrets, and there is a new boyfriend who cannot accept his loss. The writing is good. In the end, however, the outcomes do not satisfy. I'm sure there are reasons for those endings, but they just didn't sit well with this reader.

A great novel, highly recommended. Beautiful prose, rich descriptions of emotions and geographic locations. A pleasure to read and reread. I think the plot was sloppy in the following way: I wish the characters of Michaela and her father, the detective, had been reworked so the detective's connection to Lilia made more sense, and we could then see how this (more sensible, not in the novel) connection impacted Michaela, so that HER connection to Lilia made more sense. As it is now, the characters of Michaela and her father are "believable enough" and beautifully-described, but not very convincing. Be that as it may, I love this book, I love Station Eleven (by the same author), and I've ordered her other 2 novels from Amazon. I don't read novels very often, but these 2 have been great!

Very similar central characters in the two stories. Same dark, depressing undertones. I like this author very much, but the end seemed weak - like she was tired of writing this one and just said 'the end'.

The only flaw in Mandel's early writing is that all of the characters are too intellectual. Everyone reads and philosophizes and lives in an intellectual wonderland. NOT a problem for me! This book was not quite on the level of The Singer's Gun, for me, but it was still beautiful and touching. What you think is going to be a portrait of one wayward soul is a beautiful tryptic of three very different individuals, and you get to know them all equally well. I highly recommend it.

I think this author could write recipes I would read. Station Eleven is one of my favorite books of all time, a book I hated finishing because I wanted to stay in that world with those characters. This was one I didn’t mind finishing because it’s a story about three unfulfilled lives intertwined - not sad but certainly heavy and unpleasant. Some questions aren’t answered - the detectives clairvoyance, his obsession with Lilia - but that somehow doesn’t matter. Lilia around whom the book revolves is not fully fleshed out as an adult nor is Michaela (the antagonist in some ways). Eli is the only adult voice while we know lilia and michaela as kids then teens. Fitting that at the end, he starts traveling - living, really - and that Lilia finally stops moving around and lets herself get involved with other people. And Michaela....Still a book that I recommend and that is lingering in my thoughts.

I love this author and am buying up all of her books. Very complex characters, very well written

This book is written interestingly and gets you thinking. Really interesting and thought provoking will definitely read more of Emily's books

Last Night in Montreal, like Station Eleven and The Lola Quartet, draws you into a world that exists like no other. Characters are finely drawn, without superfluous weight or any insufficiency. They grow as is needed, yet are always whole and complete for the story told so far. Intriguing, believable and wholly human they carry their tale forward, all the time leaving you hoping for them to live long and happy lives.Emily St. John Mandell is a wonderful talent. I will be reading everything that she writes, that's a certainty in an uncertain world.

I truly enjoyed this novel. I find Emily St. John Mandel's style both easy going and captivating. She is very smart at pacing her novel well - actually not so much that it hurts or seems almost too forced, but she will keep you flipping those pages.I enjoyed the depth of character in this novel and the tenderness with which the author shows how childhood experiences affect adults. The characters here harm each other and care for each other, and I loved how both are often connected in this novel

I did like the story, certainly interesting characters. however I found it to drag on during the parts in Montreal.