ADA, Okla. 鈥� The East Central University Honors Program and the Ross-Osborn Honors Authors Series welcome Brooklyn native Katie Yee to campus to discuss her 2025 debut novel, Maggie; Or, A Man and a Woman Walk into a Bar. The event will be held Monday, August 24, at 7 p.m. in the Raymond J. Estep Multimedia Center.
The New York Times named Yee鈥檚 novel to its list of 100 Notable Books of 2025, and Barnes and Noble named it the winner of its 2025 Discover prize for the 鈥淏est New Author鈥� published in 2025. It was also included on summer reading lists from Time, Oprah Daily, The Washington Post, New York, Today, ELLE, and Harper鈥檚 Bazaar.
The novel鈥檚 title sounds like the start of a joke. But the 鈥渂ar鈥� turns out to be the restaurant where the unnamed Chinese-American narrator鈥檚 white husband tells her that he is having an affair with a woman named Maggie. Shortly after receiving this devastating news, the narrator walks into an examination room where she learns that she has cancer. In the pages that follow, Yee鈥檚 narrator grapples with these twin shocks and whether to even tell her husband and their two young children about her diagnosis.
The novel鈥檚 emotional stakes are high, as Yee鈥檚 narrator reflects on her role as a mother, a daughter, a Chinese-American, a friend, and a soon-to-be divorced wife in what she fears might be the final years of her life. But her humorous voice makes the narrative 鈥渁s playful as it is profound鈥� (Alison Espach, author of The Wedding People). The narrator, for example, decides to refer to her tumor as an 鈥渦nwanted roommate鈥� and to start calling it 鈥淢aggie鈥� after the woman her husband is leaving her for. The result, as Hilary Leichter author of Terrace Story has noted, is 鈥渕iraculously funny, a tender and wisecracking missive from the midst of catastrophe.鈥�
This event is free and open to the public.
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