A Good Happy Girl
A Novel
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2.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A poignant, surprising, and immersive read about a young professional woman pursuing an emotionally intense relationship with a married lesbian couple, for readers of Kristen Arnett and Melissa Broder
Helen, a jittery attorney with a self-destructive streak, is secretly reeling from a disturbing crime of neglect that her parents recently committed. Historically happy to compartmentalize—distracting herself by hooking up with lesbian couples, doting on her grandmother, and flirting with a young administrative assistant—Helen finally meets her match with Catherine and Katrina, a married couple who startle and intrigue her with their ever-increasing sexual and emotional intensity.
Perceptive and attentive, Catherine and Katrina prod at Helen’s life, revealing a childhood tragedy she’s been repressing. When her father begs her yet again for help getting parole, she realizes that she has a bargaining chip to get answers to her past.
A Good Happy Girl is interested in worlds without men—and women who will do what they can to get what they want. In her exploration of twisted desires, queer domesticity, and the effects of incarceration on the family, Marissa Higgins offers empathy to characters who often don’t receive it, with unsettling results.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Higgins's striking and visceral debut, a 30-something woman copes with her childhood trauma by nursing a cough syrup addiction and fostering a masochistic relationship with a lesbian couple. Boston attorney Helen pursues serious Catherine and sensitive Katrina, a married couple she met online, hoping for love and acceptance and for them to "mother me meanly." Woven into the narrative are shards of Helen's fractured family history. Her parents are in prison for elder abuse of Helen's grandmother, having neglected her while she was in their care, and over the course of phone calls with her father, Helen begins to suspect that her parents may have been responsible for the death of her younger brother, Ryan, when they were children. She remembers being left alone with him for long stretches, the house being unheated in the winter, and Ryan getting sick. After some prodding, her father offers to provide more details in exchange for a character statement supporting his early release. Higgins expertly captures the longing and self-loathing that drive Helen's masochism: "Catherine tsked me and I thought I would be happy to hear that disappointment frequently." The results are as captivating as they are disturbing.
