Mad Eden

Finalist, National Book Awards 2026 for Fiction

mad eden book cover with finalist medallion
ISBN 9780374620158
MCD / Farrar, Straus and Giroux / Macmillan Publishers
Morgan Thomas headshot
Morgan Thomas

Morgan Thomas is the author of Mad Eden and the story collection Manywhere, which was a finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the Lambda Literary Prize for Transgender Fiction, and the Publishing Triangle Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction. Their writing has appeared in The Paris Review, The Atlantic, The Kenyon Review, American Short Fiction, and The Yale Review. More about this author >

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From the publisher:

Ro and Liam live in a ramshackle cabin in a secluded stretch of Florida. Neither their home nor their sometimes-tumultuous relationship is what the world would call perfect, but to Ro—newly diagnosed with autism and working as a patient navigator for people seeking gender-affirming care—their life, despite the deeply inhospitable political climate, is a kind of paradise.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what shatters their peace. There’s Quentin, the unpredictable teenager for whom Liam and Ro are quasi-parents, who visits on his way to college, where he plans to finally start T. There’s the appearance of Mad Eden, an online fantasy serial about heroic dragon riders that increasingly becomes Ro’s obsession. And then there’s a seemingly innocuous patient video call that results in consequences both unexpected and grave. This triad of circumstances sends Liam’s and Ro’s world spinning toward disaster—unless Ro can become the real-life hero their situation demands without betraying who they are and who they love.

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