دانلود کتاب Maggie or A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar 2025

Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar by Katie Yee is a debut novel that balances humor with emotional weight. When the unnamed Chinese‑American narrator’s husband, Sam, reveals he is having an affair with a woman named Maggie, not long after she is diagnosed with breast cancer, she decides to name the tumor Maggie as well. Katie Yee blends tragedy and wit in a slim but powerful narrative grounded in motherhood, grief, identity, and cultural inheritance.

Through a fragmented, vignette‑style structure, Katie Yee presents the narrator’s journey of grief and self‑reclamation. She creates a fictional “User’s Manual” for her ex‑husband to aide Maggie, the woman, and speaks to her tumor as an eerie confidante. Scenes range from bedtime stories rooted in Chinese folklore to mundane observations at doctors’ offices, all infused with sharp insight and emotional restraint. In typical Nora Ephron fashion, but gentler, Yee turns personal devastation into understated comedy and quiet resilience¹.