Middle Spoon - by Alejandro Varela (Hardcover)

About the Book

"The 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"--

Book Synopsis

"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 Varela

The 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.

Review Quotes

"Nothing gets away from Alejandro Varela; every thought and detail, emotion and memory is taken apart to the atoms. The result is obsessive, explosive, heartbreaking, funny, and brilliant. Middle Spoon subverts the ordinary novel with intelligence and vulnerability, and with its arias of love and choruses of doubt, Varela has made a sly, analytical opera of the heart."
--Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less and Less Is Lost

"What a beautiful, timely novel. From the very first page, I found myself exhaling--awed by Varela's sharp wit, originality, and the extraordinary care and intensity he brings to every sentence. He truly leaves it all on the page."
--Jacqueline Woodson, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Remember Us

"Nobody but Varela could pull off this decidedly modern examination of polyamory, family, individual neurosis, and pop culture. A multifaceted gem of a novel."
--Kate Tuttle, The Boston Globe

"Intimate, funny, thoughtful."
--The Washington Post

"[Middle Spoon] tackles age-old issues--heartbreak, aspiration, disappointment--with a decidedly modern twist. . . . What does heartbreak look like when it's matched with a life that most people think is perfect? Pick this book up to find out."
--Town & Country

"Is there any better companion to our quaking world than this bright light of a book? Fiercely funny, intelligent, unhinged, and humane, it stares right into the abyss with you, pointing out all there is still left to love."
--Mira Jacob, author of Good Talk: A Memoir in Conversations

"You may have heard that this novel is inventive, moving, funny, and audacious. Yes, all that is true, but what took my breath away was its sheer intimacy. Middle Spoon is, literally, a revelation--and not just of what it feels like to grieve a breakup while hoping for reconciliation. It shows us a wondrous constellation of family and friends, parents and children, and therapists and lovers who find themselves suddenly wrestling with the countless conventions we cling to in today's inclusive yet complicated urban society. It turned me upside down in the very best way."
--Julia Glass, National Book Award-winning author of Three Junes and Vigil Harbor

"What a rollicking delight! In capturing the pain of heartbreak through the lens of a neurotic narrator, Alejandro Varela asks provocative questions about the shape of family and the nature of love. Not only does he pull all that off, but he does it in the epistolary form while digressing into political theory, quantum entanglement, and gay nightlife; and proving frequently hilarious. A triple axel of a novel."
-- Ada Calhoun, New York Times bestselling author of Crush

"The charming Alejandro Varela dares us with his utopian one-sided epistolary of a man who wants it all: a husband, a boyfriend, a trans kid, great real estate, and a membership in Brooklyn DSA. To some, perhaps a woke nightmare, to others the gluten-free bourgeois American dream. A vulnerable, nerdy, needy, and charismatic argument for the new novel of the age of chaos, where happiness can only exist at home, and so it must."
--Sarah Schulman, author of Let the Record Show

"Winking and elliptical, Alejandro Varela's Middle Spoon tells the story of a man trying desperately--and despairingly--to build a life whose conceits feel at once historically inevitable and on the brink of collapse. Like all scorned lovers, his narrator is a paranoid reader of reality: obsessive, dogged, zealous, terrified. Amid the romantic and familial restructuring, life begins, ends, and begins again. A gripping work of domestic fiction that freaks the emotional constraints of the genre."
--Maya Binyam, author of Hangman

"Varela's analysis of gay life in New York is delightful."
--W Magazine

"[Varela] crafts stories not only to entertain readers but also to benefit them in ways that relate to their health and well-being."
--USA Today

"A triumph of wit, wisdom, and emotional awareness. . . . This is yet another example of [Varela's] wizardry with plot and prose and the many varietal forms that relationships, whether exquisite or malevolent, can take. This is a writer who knows about and is unafraid of spotlighting the complex inner trappings of contemporary unorthodox queer couplings."
--Bay Area Reporter

"Middle Spoon continues [Varela's] stylish voyage across the rocky seas of young and young-ish modern love. ... Opening pages promise extremely delightful sentences, itchily close-to-home lifestyle critique, and a heart-forward analysis of the conundrum that is contemporary mating."
--LitHub (Most Anticipated Books of 2025, Part Two)

"[Varela] poses uncomfortable and universal questions about the nature of relationships and how best to navigate them. . . . A funny, perceptive, and ultimately gratifying love story."
--BookPage

"An immersive and visceral exploration of heartbreak and polyamory."
--Booklist

"[Middle Spoon] explores the beautiful complexity of unorthodox, progressive family dynamics with tenderness and humor in equal measure. . . . A touching yet provocative queer love story about defying societal expectations."
--Kirkus Reviews

"Varela's subversive and generous novel considers the sting of rejection and heartbreak from the perspective of its married narrator."
--The Millions

"A refreshingly candid tale of modern love."
--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Alejandro Varela's (he/him) debut novel, The Town of Babylon, was a finalist for the National Book Award. His short story collection, The People Who Report More Stress, was one of Publishers Weekly's best works of fiction in 2023, a finalist for the International Latino Book Awards, and longlisted for the Aspen Words Literary Prize, the Story Prize, and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award. Varela, who is based in New York, is an editor-at-large of Apogee Journal and holds a master's in public health from the University of Washington.