Comedy & Tragedy: A Guest Post by Katie Yee

When life throws her lemons, one woman chooses to find humor in heartbreak. Witty, full of heart and beautiful poetic prose — with a side of Chinese folklore — this refreshing novel is perfect for fans of short literary fiction. Read on for an exclusive essay from Katie Yee on writing Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar.

When I started writing Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar, I was thinking about how weird it is to have a body. Personally, I’m not very good at it! I’m terrible at sports, and I think fruit tarts count as salad. If I could just be a mind wandering around, I would be. But there are so many moments in life—particularly in a woman’s life—that will force you back into your body, like bearing children and spending the next several years running after them or waiting in hospital rooms and getting screened for cancer. I’ve seen my loved ones go through these things, and because writing fiction is the way I understand the world, I wanted to pin these experiences to the page. I wanted to honor their stories with this one.

Yes, it’s a novel about bleak topics (cancer, divorce), but I hope it also encourages the question: What do you reach for when everything feels bad? For our narrator, it’s the bedtime stories she tells her kids, culled from her childhood; her best friend; and a healthy dose of humor.

Early on in the story, our narrator gets hung up on anti-jokes. She buys a book of them for her kids, but then she just keeps it for herself. Here’s one: Do you want to hear something that will make you laugh? Your face muscles.

If you laughed or even grinned a little: what is that? Why is that funny? When I started writing this book, I was also curious about humor. I wanted to look at the ways we use it to connect with people or to cope.

People have been asking me lately why and how I decided to write about such sad topics in a (hopefully) funny way. To me, no experience is ever one note; the blend of the two felt very natural.

This is where the title comes in, too. Jokes are fun to play with because they come with their own standardized logic. The idea of two people walking into a bar—you think you’ve heard that one before. It mirrors the idea of things like marriage or other major life milestones. There’s a set-up that everybody recognizes. But what happens when the structure you thought you were walking into fails, or surprises you?

There’s a thin line between comedy and tragedy—much like the thin line between a joke and a plain sentence. Anti-jokes are so interesting because they prey on your idea of a joke, they play with your expectations, the way that life really is.

In a lot of ways, this novel is about the stories we tell ourselves: the myths your mother told you when you were young or that meet-cute you won’t give up because the story is just too good. Some of these stories you’ll hold onto forever, and others you’ll need to let go of. For the writers reading this, I’m just going to say: publishing a book is a weird, wonderful, unexpected combination of both.