This Is Happiness
By the author of Four Letters of Love, now a major film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan
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4.4 • 11 Ratings
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- £7.99
Publisher Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BEST NOVEL IN THE IRISH BOOK AWARDS
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2020 WALTER SCOTT PRIZE
By the author of Four Letters of Love, the international bestseller now a major film starring Helena Bonham Carter and Pierce Brosnan
'I love this book so passionately' Ann Patchett
'Lyrical, tender and sumptuously perceptive' Sunday Times
After dropping out of the seminary, seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe finds himself back in Faha, a small Irish parish where nothing ever changes, including the ever-falling rain.
But one morning the rain stops and news reaches the parish – electricity is finally arriving. With it comes a lodger to Noel's home, Christy McMahon. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.
As Noel navigates his coming-of-age, Christy's buried past gradually comes to light, casting a glow on a small world and making it new.
'If you're craving a novel of delicate wit laced with rare insight, this, truly, is happiness' Washington Post
'Written with a turn of phrase that makes the reader want to underline something on every page'
Financial Times
'What makes this so compelling and enjoyable is Williams's transparent love of his characters and delight in his setting' Observer
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In glorious and lyrical prose, Williams (History of the Rain) spins the tale of one 1958 season in the village of Faha, County Kerry, where young "Noe" Crowe, only 17 and already departed from the seminary, has washed up with his grandparents. The story opens on the Wednesday of Holy Week with the cessation of an almost constant rain, relieving the villagers of their life "under a fall of watery pitchforks." To add to this wonder, the electricity is finally coming to Faha and with it a lodger at Ganga and Doady Crowe's house. Christy McMahon is a man of broad experience who seems "as if it was he who told the world the joke of himself" and a perfect companion to Noe. During that late spring and early summer, Noe assists Christy in signing up the locals for electric service, and they spend their evenings on a quest for music at countryside pubs. Most important for Christy is his attempt to gain forgiveness from Annie Mooney, now Annie Gaffney, widow of the village chemist, a woman that Christy left at the altar decades before. Meanwhile, love springs on Noe unawares as he comes under the thrall, in succession, of each of the lovely Troy sisters, daughters of Faha's doctor, whose attention Noe needs after an accident. Noe's reminiscences of that period are full of beauty and hard-won wisdom. This novel is a delight.
