Description
London, in a not-too-distant future. The city is being swallowed into the ground, the rich are still getting richer, and Waiters do the jobs you don’t have time for. They queue for your concert tickets, stay in for your deliveries and stir your risotto.
Step into the shoes of an unnamed Waiter who has no recollection of who they were before their role at the Company. Now select your next job and decide whether to peek into the client’s luggage, and if you’ll risk losing work credits by helping a tired woman with her shopping. Balance your humanity with your job security at every turn, and manage your creeping desire to understand who you once were, and who you might become. You’ll want to crawl as close as possible to the edge of the maw without falling into its depths.
With 11 different endings and countless journeys towards them, The Waiter creates a labyrinthine world of possibilities and parallel worlds which combine to explore queer longing, consumerism and agency in a city and a psyche on the brink of collapse.
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Praise for The Waiter
“Brilliantly inventive and moving. I’ve never read anything like it before.”Â
~ Soula Emmanuel, author of Wild Geese
“The Waiter is unsettling and labyrinthine, with a clever structure that reflects our world of endless choice and draws the reader into a reality-adjacent world of surveillance and futility and the search for connection. A strange, tender novel by a writer of great skill and thoughtfulness.”
~ Gabrielle Griffiths, author of Greater Sins
“It’s tautly plotted, sometimes dreamlike, sometimes nightmarish” ~ @ohomatopoeia
“I really enjoyed the interactivity with the story and am keen to explore the different choices and other endings too.” ~ @bookish_lizzy
“It’s ominous and thrilling, no matter what choices you make, and I went through making them all in a single sitting because it was just so good!” ~ @thingsamyread
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Kwan Ann Tan is originally from Malaysia but currently based in London. Her work has previously been published in The Offing, Joyland Magazine, and Sine Theta Magazine. She won the 2023 Bournemouth Writing competition and is an alumnus of the Tin House Winter Workshop. She lives in London. Her debut novel The Waiter is forthcoming from The Emma Press in November 2025.
