When your ex gets the cat: the writer who divorced in her 20s – and turned it into a runaway bestseller

Monica Heisey: ‘[Divorce] feels like you’re sort of fumbling around in the dark.’ Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

In a world where, for many twenty- and thirtysomethings, just about every marker of adulthood – home ownership, grownup holidays, quality furniture – is out of reach, marriage, says Maggie in Monica Heisey’s new novel, is the “only hallmark of what we think of as an ‘adult life’ that’s still accessible”. As long as you can find someone to go into it with, that is. What happens, then, if you get married and then divorce while still young? Have you failed at adulthood? This is what Heisey writes about in her debut novel, Really Good, Actually, which has zoomed up the bestseller lists since its publication last month.

Maggie and Jon fell in love at university, moved in together because neither could afford to live alone, and got a cat. Marriage seemed the next step. Then, at 28, Maggie found herself divorced; the same age Heisey was when her own marriage ended.