‘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
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, Lit Hub, and W Magazine
A whipsmart, 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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
‘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
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, Lit Hub, and W Magazine
A whipsmart, 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.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"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
"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
"Is there any better companion to our quaking world than this bright light of 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
"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
"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
"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
"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
"Is there any better companion to our quaking world than this bright light of 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
"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
"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
"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
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