Twenty Summers | Author, Isle McElroy, Pat Kearns & Patrick Nolan in Conversation

McElroy’s debut novel, “The Atmospherians,” told the clever but slightly insiderly and overfreighted tale of a wellness cult designed to cleanse men of their toxicity. “People Collide” is a more agile, universal book, with its title alluding to the randomness of human connection. It’s a variety of rom-com, really, that somewhat lost art. “Circumstances pinball people together,” the narrator declares. “This is called fate because chance is too scary a word.”

Perhaps no situation is more pinballish than that of in-laws, and McElroy’s unexpected digression into the psyche of Elizabeth’s mother, a frustrated writer herself who unknowingly condemns Eli for abandoning her daughter, is one of the novel’s great gifts.

Patrick Nolan is Vice President, Publisher of Penguin Books and imprint of Penguin Random House.

Pat Kearns is a writer living in Provincetown, MA. He is the keeper of the people’s parlor and writes for the Arts & Minds section for The Provincetown Independent.