Cart 0
Cart 0

Isle McElroy

“Perhaps the artist’s impulse to tell the truth is what makes art so undervalued in America. Good art and good literature, I believe, asks us to confront who we truly are.”

 

Read

WATCH

“People Collide takes a sudden turn in its final pages, building toward an ending that’s genuinely moving and redemptive, though not in the way the reader has been expecting. The finale is so good, in fact, that it elevates the entire book, making it one of the year’s most compelling reads. Ultimately, McElroy discovers that gender-swap narratives may really be about tracing the wavy line between envy and desire.”
— The Washington Post
“Engrossing . . . an impressive twist on the familiar trope of marital ennui.”
— Publishers Weekly
“This is exceptional writing: McElroy’s world-building is artful, funny and bracingly resonant. “Influencer was not yet a word anyone used,” Sasha says. “It was merely an idea buried in ice, waiting for its prison to melt.” Just shy of the reality we now occupy, “The Atmospherians” is full of visceral, often sickening emotion, as expressed through Sasha’s impulsive shifts in mood and impressionability. Wellness is oblivion, and as she flees from one kind of cult to another, Sasha comes to grasp the power of her own influence — while losing her ability to resist it. Whether we’re online or not, “The Atmospherians” includes all of us in its vast, cutting scope. The algorithm wouldn’t want it any other way.”
— New York Times
“The Atmospherians is a marvel, a wonder, a gift. McElroy’s characters glide across the page, in and out of love, and we see ourselves in their conflicts, their crucibles, and what they hold dear. Simply put, McElroy dazzles. This novel is dazzling.”
— Bryan Washginton
“The novel balances perfectly on the razor’s edge between reality and absurdism, the place where excellent satire dwells, while spinning a complex investigation of huge topics: guilt, culpability, loyalty, sexism, fatphobia, abuse of power…. It is a book about craving—fame, food, praise, each other, ourselves—and it is a book to be devoured.”
— Vanity Fair

Isle McElroy is a nonbinary writer based in Brooklyn. Their most recent novel is People Collide (HarperCollins, 2023), praised by NPR as a “deep exploration of marriage, love, and the ways we know one another.” Their debut novel is The Atmospherians (Atria, 2021), called “exceptional writing” by the New York Times. They are the author of a story collection, Daddy Issues (The Cupboard Pamphlet, 2016), winner of the Cupboard Pamphlet’s 2016 Editors’ Prize. They have received fellowships from The Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, The Tin House Summer Workshop, The Sewanee Writers Conference, The Inprint Foundation, The Elizabeth George Foundation, and The National Parks Service.

McElroy is also an essayist and critic. Their writing has appeared in The Cut, BuzzFeed, Vulture, GQ, Elle, Vice, The Atlantic, Bon Appetit, Tin House, and elsewhere. In 2021, they founded Debuts and Redos, a monthly reading series featuring debut authors and authors who released books during the pandemic. 

Their writing covers the subjects of diet culture, masculinity, non-binary identity, basketball, and more. When asked in an interview about the portrayal of the male characters in The Atmospherians—reprehensible and unsafe but at other times genuine and vulnerable—McElroy responded: “It’s hard to write anything out of hatred. Even from a dislike for the characters or an extreme dislike for the things they’ve done. It’s like parenting: you can like look at something a child has done wrong and say you’re extremely disappointed the child did that. But you also still love them. And that’s the only appropriate response to have to characters. I can look at the actions these men have taken, and I can say “Wow, that was a pretty awful thing to do. I don’t agree with that.” But I continue to love them. . . What seems on a surface level to be a contradiction is in fact the truth of being alive.”

McElroy lives in Brooklyn, NY. 

 

IMAGE GALLERY

Open and right-click to download