Maggie; Or, a Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar (Unabridged)
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3.7 • 11 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A New York Times Notable Book. One of Time’s 100 Must-Read Book of 2025.
Summer’s Best Beach Reads by The New York Times • Books You Should Read This July by New York magazine • Books We’re Most Excited About by Today • Best Beach Reads by Harper’s Bazaar • Best Books of Summer by ELLE • Most Anticipated Books of the Summer by Time • Best Summer Reads by Oprah Daily • Books to Read this Summer by The Washington Post
“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.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
In this poignant debut novel, a Chinese American woman’s life is thrown into chaos after she finds out that her husband is having an affair—and she has breast cancer. During date night at an Indian restaurant, the unnamed narrator’s husband, Sam, drops the bombshell that he’s leaving. But despite the pain and misery that follows, she finds solace in telling her children bedtime stories based on Chinese folklore, taking advice from her wonderful best friend, Darlene, and pointedly not telling her ex about her cancer diagnosis. We loved the chapter-free, nonlinear structure here, which reflects the nature of memory and the messiness of life. We also enjoyed the narrator’s love of powerful, layered metaphors, like comparing her relationship to her favorite room in a house. Those who enjoy the strong friendships of books by Taylor Jenkins Reid or the big questions of works by Katie Kitamura will love this defiant and memorable novel.
