Good News

In this fun and resonant debut novel, a young painter Maggie struggles to make sense of her art, her relationships, and her identity when she’s put up for a prestigious prize.

Maggie is on the brink. Her MFA thesis painting—a vast canvas of twenty women suspended between life and death—is met with polite confusion. Her marriage-material boyfriend, Rob, is too consumed by his office job to notice her unraveling, and she’s one missed call away from her Turkish mother filing a missing person’s report. To make matters worse, her brother’s partner, a performance artist who insists on being called “The Artist,” seems to embody the kind of confidence Maggie can’t muster.

When Maggie’s ex, Rakib—a smooth-talking art critic with the power to introduce her to big names on the scene—reappears and calls her by her Turkish name, Müjde, her forced composure starts to slip. Then comes the she’s been nominated for a major award that could launch her career. With the deadline looming, her relationship faltering, and her sense of self in flux, Maggie begins to question not just her art, but the life she’s been trying to build.

Set against the push and pull of immigrant family expectations, the competitive world of contemporary art, and the restless uncertainty of one’s late twenties, Good News is a mordantly funny and emotionally resonant debut that will appeal to readers of Lily King, Coco Mellors, and Sarah Thankam Mathews.