Middle Spoon: A Novel by Alejandro Varela (Hardcover)

Fiction - Literary - Family Life - LGBTQ+ - Gay

RELEASE DATE: 9/9/2025  (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER'S WAREHOUSE)

One of TODAY’s 50 Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2025

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.

AUTHOR BIO: 

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

“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

"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"

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

"[ 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