Middle Spoon. A Novel

"Middle Spoon subverts the ordinary novel with intelligence and vulnerability. . . . Varela has made a sly, analytical opera of the heart." -Andrew Sean Greer, author of Less and Less Is Lost "A rollicking delight! . . . Varela asks provocative questions about the shape of family and the nature of love." -Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Crush Longlisted for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize · A Mother Jones Best Book of the Year · One of Today's 50 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2025 · Named a Must-Read Book of Fall 2025 by Town & Country, W Magazine, and more A whip-smart, blazingly funny novel about heartbreak, unconventional love, and the way society could be, from National Book Award finalist Alejandro VarelaThe narrator of Middle Spoon appears to be living the dream: He has a doting husband, two precocious children, all the comforts of a quiet bourgeois life-and a sexy younger boyfriend to accompany him to farmers markets and cocktail parties.
But when his boyfriend abruptly dumps him, he spirals into heartbreak for the first time and must confront a world still struggling to understand polyamorous relationships. Faced with the judgment of friends and the sting of rejection, he's left to wonder if sharing a life with both his family and his lover could ever truly be possible. With a big heart and just the right dose of the anxieties that define the modern era, Middle Spoon skewers the unspoken rules we still live by-from taboos around intimacy to the shortcomings of Oscar season, pop culture, and gluten-free food-offering a surprising perspective on love, loss, and reinvention.
Equal parts heart-wrenching and uproariously funny, Middle Spoon is for anyone who has longed, nursed a broken heart, or grappled with love at its messiest.