Station Elf by Emily St John Mandel

After a sudden, civilization-ending pandemic, a small traveling troupe of actors and musicians roams the Great Lakes region performing Shakespeare and preserving fragments of culture; the narrative moves between before-and-after timelines to follow an aging actor, a young actress who grew up after the collapse, a former paramedic, and the creator of a mysterious comic, weaving their lives together to examine survival, memory, art, and what it means to rebuild community.