Satellite - by Isle McElroy (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"We all wonder what it would be like to live a different kind of life -- but what if you could turn the TV on and see that fantasy playing out on the screen? That's the premise at the center of Satellite, the new novel from Isle McElroy." --People

It's the mid-90s, and Paul and Johanna are living a comfortable life in rural New Jersey. When Paul met and wooed Johanna, she was waiting tables at a miserable dive in North Carolina. Now, she has a nice house, a pool, and a purpose: her charming, devastatingly handsome husband, a successful small-business owner nine years her senior. So when Paul sits down to dinner one night and asks her for a divorce, Johanna is utterly blindsided. She refuses.

Soon thereafter, Paul is paralyzed in an accident. Johanna becomes his devoted caretaker, and talk of separation is forgotten. In her free moments, Johanna watches television--satellite TV, with its hundreds of channels, a reliable escape from her arduous days. Until she stumbles on something unusual: an extra channel, not found in the TV guide, whose only show is a round-the-clock feed of a woman who looks, acts, and talks just like her. Except this other Johanna lives in New York City, alone, and seems to have a different person in her bed every night. As watching morphs from hobby to obsession, the drama moves off-screen and begins to encroach on Johanna's real life, threatening everything she holds most dear.

Provocative and profound, Satellite is a transfixing novel that boldly explores the love, care, boredom, pleasure, resentment, and connection that make a marriage--and how transgressive it can feel to choose yourself. As compulsively readable as it is deeply felt, this novel confirms Isle McElroy as a virtuosic writer at the height of their talents.

Review Quotes

Advance praise for Satellite

"Satellite is a thrilling and subversive tale of the psychological powers embedded in domestic activities and ordinary relationships, and explores the question of what makes a more important alternative to the present--the unlived past or the not yet fulfilled future. Isle McElroy writes with the sharpness of a searchlight into the hidden corners of human hearts." --Yiyun Li, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Things in Nature Merely Grow

"Satellite is a twisted and hilarious doppelganger thriller that left me ruminating on its philosophical premise for weeks. What began as a strange and sexy page-turner kept surprising me with its tenderness and emotional intelligence--a tremendously satisfying read." --Melissa Febos, national bestselling author of Girlhood and The Dry Season

About the Author

Isle McElroy is the author of two novels, The Atmospherians, which was named a New York Times Editors' Choice, and People Collide, which was named a New York Times Critics' Pick and a best book of 2023 by Vulture, NPR, and Vogue. Their writing has appeared in The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, Vulture, The Cut, The Atlantic, Esquire, and elsewhere. McElroy teaches in the MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College. They have received fellowships from the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, the Black Mountain Institute, the Sewanee Writers' Conference, and the Elizabeth George Foundation.