Alex McElroy: The Atmospherians

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Alex McElroy will be in conversation with Emily Hessney Lynch.

A “dazzling” (Bryan Washington, author of Memorial) and brilliantly satirical debut novel about two best friends—a disgraced influencer and a struggling actor—who form The Atmosphere, a cult designed to reform problematic men.

Sasha Marcus was once the epitome of contemporary success: an internet sensation, social media darling, and a creator of a high profile wellness brand for women. But a confrontation with an abusive troll has taken a horrifying turn, and now she’s at rock bottom: canceled and doxxed online. Sasha’s childhood friend Dyson hatches a plan to restore her reputation by becoming the face of The Atmosphere, a rehabilitation community designed to rid men of their toxic masculinity and heal them physically, emotionally, and socially. But what horrors await Sasha as the resident female leader of a crew of washed up, desperate men? 

Explosive and wickedly funny, The Atmospherians peers straight into the dark heart of wellness and woke-ness, self-mythology and self-awareness, by asking what happens when we become addicted to the performance of ourselves. 

 “Gutsy, hilarious, and fully saturated with the absurd spirit of our times, The Atmospherians is a novel about the tangle of capitalism, narcissism, and masculinity that have defined our cultural moment. McElroy is a master excavator of the murky innards that drive us, a satirist with an eye for the tender parts that make us tick.” – Alexandra Kleeman, author of You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine 

Alex McElroy (they/them) is a nonbinary writer based in Brooklyn. They received their MFA from Arizona State University and their PhD from the University of Houston. Their writing has been supported by the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. The Atmospherians is their first novel.

Emily Hessney Lynch is a social media strategist and owner of Serve Me the Sky Digital, where she has worked with numerous nonprofits, small businesses, and international brands. Her short fiction and memoir work has appeared in McSweeney’s, Sad Girls Club Literary, Five Minute Lit, and Spellbinder Magazine; and is forthcoming in Gastropoda Lit and Sledgehammer Lit. She lives in Rochester, NY, with her husband and their two rescue dogs.

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Alex McElroy:
The Atmospherians

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