Synopsis

A “dazzling” (Bryan Washington, author of Memorial and Lot ) and brilliantly satirical debut novel for fans of Women Talking and Red Clocks 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, fired from her waitress job and fortressed in her apartment while men’s rights protestors rage outside. All that once glittered now condemns.

Sasha confides in her oldest childhood friend, Dyson—a failed actor with a history of body issues—who hatches a plan for Sasha to restore her reputation by becoming the face of his new business venture, The Atmosphere: a rehabilitation community for men. Based in an abandoned summer camp and billed as a workshop for job training, it is actually a rigorous program designed to rid men of their toxic masculinity and heal them physically, emotionally, and socially. Sasha has little choice but to accept. But what horrors await her as the resident female leader of a crew of washed up, desperate men? And what exactly does Dyson want?

Explosive and wickedly funny, this “Fight Club for the millennial generation” (Mat Johnson, author of Pym) 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.

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Review

This is a satirical look at the world today where men are put into or join rehabilitation centers (cults) to rid themselves of their masculinity and one such cult is run by two friends that are washed up in their own lives and perhaps this is better than nothing.

Sasha was a rising star until a man (troll) kills himself and blames her…and weirdly, society jumps on the bandwagon and starts hounding and harassing her and she is stuck in her apartment with no safe way to get out. Sound somewhat familiar in today’s world? This type of behavior by the masses is very common and one could say they are bullying her for something that really wasn’t her fault. She didn’t put the gun to the guy’s head. However, it is her words that are what get her into trouble. I found the whole situation very sad and felt for Sasha and what she was having to go through.

Dyson is a successful actor as long as he doesn’t have any speaking roles and is apparently sought after for those types of roles. I guess everyone has to have a strength somewhere. He decides to start a cult on some land his parents own/gave him in New York. What ensues is quite interesting between the men that become a part of this cult and what they have to do to stay there and become “better” men. On one hand, it is absurd, but on the other hand, Dyson starts digging into the men’s history and what brought them to this point in their life. In a way, it is helpful to several of the men. One thing I noticed is that the men in this cult were all white men and they were being taught to be less white….another stab at society today?

I have to give the author credit for poking fun at what we see in the world today and how out of control it has gotten. There are a few lines that did stick out to me that I want to share because I agree wholeheartedly with these thoughts:

“No one communicates. They’d rather troll and drag and call out and harass and cancel. It’s painful. And my industry is the problem – tech companies killed communication, with social media, texting, apps that tell you when to express your love for someone.”

“Because that’s the problem now: everyone has all these thoughts and ideas and they spread them without considering whether they might hurt someone else.”

If you are into satire and dark comedy, this is probably a book you will want to read. I saw another review that compared it to Black Mirror and the weirdness of that show, and honestly, I could see this book being made into an episode of that show.

We give it 3 1/2 paws up.

About the Author

Alex McElroy is a nonbinary writer based in Brooklyn. Their first novel, The Atmospherians, will be published by Atria in 2021. Other writing appears in Vice, The Atlantic, Tin House, TriQuarterly, New England Review, and their first book, Daddy Issues, was published in 2017.
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Alex has 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.

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