Isle McElroy (The Atmospherians) takes readers on a mind-bending journey of gender exploration and body politics with People Collide. Much of the novel is told from the perspective of Eli Harding, an American man living in Bulgaria with his wife, Elizabeth, a highly accomplished writer with a prestigious teaching fellowship. Eli is also a writer, but less successful--at everything--than his impressive spouse. In the novel's opening pages, he discovers that he has woken up in Elizabeth's body. Elizabeth herself has disappeared.
Eli first hides away in the couple's apartment, waiting for Elizabeth--whom he assumes now occupies his body--to return, or for this mysterious "Incident" (as he thinks of it) to right itself. When he ventures out, he dresses Elizabeth's body, applies makeup, and decides that she was right: a male friend was condescending to her all this time. Then both Eli's mother and Elizabeth's parents push for action: he is sent to Paris by his own mother (who believes he is Elizabeth) to search for her vanished son. He finds his wife--indeed, in his own body--and the surreality intensifies.
Beyond the gender binary and the public's assumptions based upon appearances, McElroy's insightful novel also examines class, privilege, the art world, and family relationships. Everyone judges Eli harshly for abandoning his wife--an irony, because it was, in fact, Elizabeth who did the abandoning, in his body. People Collide is sly, clever, funny, provocative, and compelling. It offers a world and a story to get lost in. --Julia Kastner, librarian and blogger at pagesofjulia