Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar

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"As with Nora Ephron's Heartburn...you read Maggie to spend time with its author." --The Washington Post

A Chinese American woman spins tragedy into comedy when her life falls apart in a taut, wry debut novel, "as playful as it is profound" (Alison Espach, author of The Wedding People)--perfect for fans of Joan Is Okay and Crying in H Mart.

A man and a woman walk into a restaurant. The woman expects a lovely night filled with endless plates of samosas. Instead, she finds out her husband is having an affair with a woman named Maggie.

A short while after, her chest starts to ache. She walks into an examination room, where she finds out the pain in her breast isn't just heartbreak--it's cancer. She decides to call the tumor Maggie.

Unfolding in fragments over the course of the ensuing months, Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar follows the narrator as she embarks on a journey of grief, healing, and reclamation. She starts talking to Maggie (the tumor), getting acquainted with her body's new inhabitant. She overgenerously creates a "Guide to My Husband: A User's Manual" for Maggie (the other woman), hoping to ease the process of discovering her ex-husband's whims and quirks. She turns her children's bedtime stories into retellings of Chinese folklore passed down by her own mother, in an attempt to make them fall in love with their shared culture--and to maybe save herself in the process.

In the style of Jenny Offill and the tradition of Nora Ephron's hilarious and devastating writing on heartbreak and womanhood, Maggie is a master class in transforming personal tragedy into a form of defiant comedy.

Author: Katie Yee
Publisher: S&s/Summit Books
Published: 07/22/2025
Pages: 208
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.70lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.60w x 1.10d
ISBN: 9781668084212


Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 03/01/2025 pg. 3
Publishers Weekly 05/12/2025
Kirkus Reviews 06/01/2025
Booklist 06/01/2025 pg. 28

About the Author
Katie Yee is a writer from Brooklyn. She has received fellowships from the Center for Fiction, the Asian American Writers' Workshop, and Kundiman. Her work has appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, No Tokens, The Believer, the Washington Square Review, Triangle House, Epiphany, and Literary Hub. By day, she works at the Brooklyn Museum. By night, she writes, usually under the watch of her judgmental rescue dog, Ollie.