Mikki Brammer’s contemporary novel, Good Joy, Bad Joy (2026), explores themes of aging, friendship, and self-discovery in the final chapter of a woman’s life. The story centers on Joy Bridport, an 89-year-old widow who has spent her life adhering to the rules and expectations of others. Her quiet, predictable existence in the small town of Beacon, New York, is shattered when her lifelong best friend, the adventurous and rebellious Hazel Scottsdale, reveals she has terminal cancer. Faced with the impending loss of her closest confidante, Joy embarks on an uncharacteristic journey of mischief and defiance, questioning the passive life she has always lived. The novel examines how Rebellion as a Path to Personal Agency can lead to empowerment at any age, the social phenomenon of how Aging Erases Social Visibility, and how Friendship Relies on Contrasting Strengths to create a powerful, symbiotic bond.

Good Joy, Bad Joy continues the thematic focus on mortality, grief, and finding meaning that characterized Brammer’s bestselling debut novel, The Collected Regrets of Clover (2023), which was a Good Morning America Book Club pick. An Australian journalist who writes about art and design, Brammer uses her fiction to explore Western society’s discomfort with death and dying, suggesting that a conscious engagement with mortality can inspire a more authentic life. As in her previous work, which centered on the world of a death doula, Brammer directly references this practice when Hazel mentions hiring one to help her prepare for the end. The novel follows Joy’s transformation from a timid, people-pleasing woman into a bold instigator, illustrating that it’s never too late to redefine one’s identity and embrace a more complex, fulfilling existence.

This guide refers to the 2026 St. Martin’s Press first edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide feature depictions of illness, death, bullying, gender discrimination, sexual harassment, substance use, and pregnancy termination.

Plot Summary

Eighty-nine-year-old Joy Bridport begins each day in her small town of Beacon, New York, with a sense of gratitude for being alive, a feeling sharpened by the loss of her husband, Thom, and most of her contemporaries. Her daily check-in texts with her lifelong best friend, Hazel Scottsdale, an adventurous, rule-breaking woman living in Brooklyn, are a comfort, but Joy’s quiet, predictable life feels increasingly small and insignificant. This feeling is amplified when Hazel visits and reveals she has terminal cancer with only months to live. The news shatters Joy’s world, forcing her to confront the prospect of being truly alone and to question the quiet, “good” life she has always lived. Her unease is compounded by the arrival of a new neighbor, Rowan, a tattooed man whom local gossip Rita identifies as an ex-convict from Sing Sing prison, making Joy wary despite his kind demeanor.

Haunted by Hazel’s diagnosis and her cavalier acceptance of her fate, Joy begins to rebel against her own cautious nature. During a visit to a visibly weakened Hazel in Brooklyn, she agrees to meet her friend’s marijuana dealer to procure something for the pain. The successful, illicit transaction gives Joy a surprising thrill, sparking a transformation. She starts to break rules, feeling a surge of life with each transgression: She steals a popular library book she has on hold, sets off the library’s fire alarm and gets away with it, and purposefully dents the car of her neighbor, Celeste Hobart, a woman she has resented for decades, believing she had an affair with Thom. Amidst her newfound mischief, Joy develops a friendship with Rowan. They bond over their shared experiences with loss, and he confides that he was unjustly imprisoned years ago. Joy also learns from her grandson, Finn, that her daughter, Elizabeth, has been accepting money from Hazel. The revelation wounds Joy, who feels excluded from her daughter’s struggles.

A major confrontation erupts between Joy and her daughter when Elizabeth accuses Joy of being emotionally distant and always masking pain with platitudes instead of truly listening. She reveals she knew about Thom’s multiple affairs throughout her childhood and resents Joy for staying in the marriage and for pressuring her into a similarly “dependable” but ultimately unhappy marriage to her ex-husband, Jack. Devastated, Joy flees the conversation.

Seeking a grand gesture to show her love for Hazel, she concocts a plan after learning Rowan and his partner, Philippe, an antiques restorer, have a side business forging art and selling the originals. She asks them to help her steal a ceramic vase for Hazel. The vase, made by Hazel’s late friend and former lover, Eric, is owned by Seth, a spiteful shop owner who has refused to sell it to Hazel for decades because of an old grudge. After some hesitation, Rowan and Philippe agree to create a replica for Joy to swap with the original.

On the day of the heist, Joy adopts her “Bad Joy” alter ego, disguising herself as a frail, eccentric old woman. At Seth’s secondhand shop, Philippe distracts Seth while Joy switches the real vase with the replica. She makes a clean escape, but her triumph is cut short when she arrives on her street to find a police car outside Rowan’s house. Fearing they have been caught, she rushes over to confess and take full responsibility. The officer, however, is not investigating the theft but responding to a nuisance complaint from Rita. He recognizes Joy and reveals himself to be Chuck Launceston, one of her former piano students. He tearfully tells her that her kindness and the stability of her free lessons changed his life, giving Joy a deep sense of validation for her quiet existence. Later, she presents the stolen vase to Hazel, who is deeply moved and asks Joy to use it as an urn for her ashes.

In the final weeks of Hazel’s life, Joy begins to mend her fractured relationships. When she publicly confronts Celeste about the supposed affair, Celeste confesses the truth: Thom made an unwanted advance on her, and she pushed him away, keeping the incident a secret for decades in an attempt to protect Joy. The two women reconcile, lifting a 40-year burden of misunderstanding from Joy’s shoulders. Her newfound courage propels Joy to apologize to Elizabeth for her emotional distance and for pressuring her into a life she didn’t want. Elizabeth, in turn, tearfully admits that her ex-husband also cheated, and she divorced him to avoid repeating her mother’s path. They embrace, finally repairing their strained bond. Joy moves into Hazel’s Brooklyn loft to care for her friend, and in their last days together, they share their deepest feelings. Hazel tells Joy their friendship has been the greatest love of her life, and she reveals she’s leaving Joy her apartment and a sum of money to fund a scholarship for her piano students. Hazel urges her to live the rest of her life with gusto.

Months after Hazel’s death, a 90-year-old Joy hosts a dinner at the Brooklyn loft, and Elizabeth, Finn, Celeste, Rowan, and Philippe gather around a table with Hazel’s ashes in the vase at its head. Joy, who has removed her wedding ring, feels a deep sense of peace and possibility. She understands that her quiet contributions have mattered and that her own life, like the plants in her garden, can bloom at any age. She has reconciled the “good” and “bad” within herself, realizing they are both part of being human. Reflecting on her journey, Joy feels awake, alive, and ready for whatever comes next.