Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar

A Chinese American mother of two learns in close succession that her husband is leaving her for a woman named Maggie and that she has breast cancer. In a darkly funny act of defiance, she names the tumor Maggie too, then sets about holding her life together. She reworks her children's bedtime stories into the Chinese folktales her own mother told her, reconnects with a heritage she had drifted from, and processes her grief, anger, and fear in short, sharp, very funny fragments. Yee's debut turns a double catastrophe into a tender meditation on motherhood, identity, and survival.