People Collide

A Novel

By: Isle McElroy

Narrated by: Daniel Henning, Aida Reluzco

“One of the year's most compelling reads.”—Washington Post

“Its naturalness and ease with the most fundamental questions of existence make it a big project knocking around in a small package.”—New York Times

From the acclaimed author of The Atmospherians, a gender-bending, body-switching novel that explores marriage, identity, and sex, and raises profound questions about the nature of true partnership.

When Eli leaves the cramped Bulgarian apartment he shares with Elizabeth, his more organized and successful wife, he discovers that he now inhabits her body. Not only have he and his wife traded bodies, but Elizabeth, living as Eli, has disappeared without a trace. What follows is Eli’s search across Europe and to America for his missing wife—and a roving, no-holds-barred exploration of gender and embodied experience.

As Eli comes closer to finding Elizabeth—while learning to exist in her body—he begins to wonder what effect this metamorphosis will have on their relationship and how long he can maintain the illusion of living as someone he isn’t. Will their new marriage wither completely? Or is this transformation the very thing Eli and Elizabeth need for their marriage to thrive?

A rich, rewarding exploration of ambition and sacrifice, desire and loss, People Collide is a portrait of shared lives that shines a refreshing light on everything we thought we knew about love, sexuality, and the truth of who we are.

©2023 Isle McElroy (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Daniel Henning narrates this unconventional novel with light humor and a hefty dose of bemusement that is fitting for the main character, Eli, who wakes up one day in his wife Elizabeth's body.... This is not a typical body-swap book, but a meandering exploration of gender identity, and partnership. Henning voices Eli with a range of inflections that capture the weird liminal space he inhabits. Aida Reluzco aptly narrates several sections that recount Eli and Elizabeth's backstories. Listeners looking for thoughtful speculative fiction about gender will not be disappointed." (AudioFile)

A different perspective on different perspectives

The walk-in-my-shoes body-swap trope has been used in many ways: broad comedy, empathy, and, yes, erotica. A husband-wife swap might use all three.

This story downplays them all (except for the obilgatory sex scene) to focus on issues of personality, identity, and class. "The Incident" is simply a springboard into the collisions of the uncomfortable couple's dysfunctional families. Everyone changes, not just Eli and Eliizabeth. Not all the changes are for the better.

This performance is voiced by two narrators, Daniel Henning and Aida Reluzco. The sample is from Henning's reading of a scene in the first chapter and doesn't do credit to his overall versatile performance. His reading of the main first-person narrator, Eli-as-Elizabeth, wins the reader over despite the character's deep insecurities. Reluzco's part is not, as one would expect, the other half of the couple. Instead she reads what sounds like a third-person telling of the couple's story. We learn late in the book that this is truly from an unreliable narrator who has a story of her own.

McElroy, a nonbinary author, is in a unique position to see not only both sides, but the repercussions a sudden inexplicable change in perspectives would cause in an extended family of writers and counselors. There's an ending, but it's unresolved -- as most of our life stories will be. And that may be the point.

On a scale of "Pretty Good," "It's Great" or "I Love It" it's somewhere in the middle. I didn't love it -- but that, too, may be the point.

Skip it.

Slow and pointless story with unlikeable characters. Such an interesting premise I feel the author could have done so much more with this story.

Thought provoking

I loved the story, but it stopped very abruptly and left my need for closure unsatisfied.