Happiness Forever
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- 18,99 €
Descrizione dell’editore
‘I wanted to pass it on to all my friends’ SHEILA HETI
'Remarkable clarity and humour' VOGUE
'A book full of wisdom … clever and funny' DAILY MAIL
‘Disarmingly sweet’ NICOLA DINAN
'Funny and tender' PANDORA SYKES
'Had me hopelessly charmed' AMY KEY
‘A fever dream' SHARLENE TEO
'Impossible to put down’ LISA OWENS
A tragicomic and utterly original debut novel following a woman trying to make sense of her life and herself as she falls in love with her therapist.
Sylvie is only happy when she is at therapy. This is because Sylvie is in love with her therapist. She wants to kiss her and roll around on the floor with her. She thinks about her every second they’re not together (roughly 167 hours and 10 minutes per week). She’s aware she has an obsession, but whether it is – as her therapist suggests – a case of extreme ‘erotic transference’, or a lost person’s need to connect, Sylvie isn’t sure.
Beyond therapy, Sylvie has what she considers to be a small life: a job as a veterinary nurse, her little brain-damaged dog, Curtains, and a new friend Chloe who she met on the beach. When the therapist delivers some devastating news, Sylvie has to imagine new and lasting ways of coping (that don’t include being adopted by the therapist). Her world has begun to open up, inching beyond the fear that has confined her until now, and she must decide whether she’s ready for a bravery of feeling.
In this stunning debut novel, Adelaide Faith encapsulates the great vulnerability, difficulty and joy of being alive.
'There is so much rare humour and insight and sweetness and humanity … and a true and ringing voice' Sheila Heti, author of Pure Colour
‘A spare, associative novel of projection and self-acceptance’ New Yorker
'A tragicomic portrait of a mind in the process of healing' The Cut
'Witty and irreverent … Readers will fall in love' Publishers Weekly
'A jaw-dropping, exhilarating, completely original high-wire act' Jessica Stanley, author of Consider Yourself Kissed
'With tenderness and never force, Happiness Forever reminds us that the most meaningful choices can be the small, everyday things that simply string a life together' Pandora Sykes, author of How Do We Know We're Doing It Right?
‘For fans of Convenience Store Woman and Pond’ Sharlene Teo, author of Ponti
‘Surprising and funny … poignant and philosophical … a book I won't soon forget’ Chelsea Hodson, author of Tonight I'm Someone Else
Readers love Happiness Forever ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐:
'Utterly beguiling … a truly memorable read'
'Quite honestly couldn’t put it down'
'An utter joy to read! I loved it from start to finish. For fans of Big Swiss!'
'A beautifully crafted debut, filled with heart, wit and a deep understanding of what it means to be human'
'Humorous, bizarre and touching … A very strong debut!'
'So charged and insightful and provocative … I recommend it highly'
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Faith's witty and irreverent debut, a British woman develops an unshakable obsession with her therapist. Sylvie, a veterinarian nurse, scrolled through 23 pages of therapists before choosing the "only one... who didn't strike her as too annoying to talk to." After a few sessions, Sylvia spots her unnamed therapist on the street while the two women are out walking their dogs, and she's overcome with desire for the therapist's love and approval ("She felt she might be saved.... There was a sense that a great freedom was close"). Instead of greeting her therapist, though, she picks up her dog and runs away. As the sessions unfold, the reader learns Sylvia has a history of fixations on unattainable people, such as a crime writer whose attention she sought by presenting him with a drawing of his dog. In the third act, the therapist delivers upsetting news, prompting Sylvie to search for the strength to rely on herself. Faith's razor-sharp prose and Sylvie's fanciful thinking sustain the offbeat narrative. Readers will fall in love with this meditative and heartfelt novel.
