Happy Stories, Mostly
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In their stunning fiction debut, queer Indonesian writer Norman Erikson Pasaribu blends together speculative fiction and dark absurdism, drawing from Batak and Christian cultural elements.
Longlisted for the International Booker Prize, Happy Stories, Mostly introduces “one of the most important Indonesian writers today” (Litro Magazine). These twelve short stories ask what it means to be almost happy—to nearly find joy, to sort-of be accepted, but to never fully grasp one's desire. Joy shimmers on the horizon, just out of reach.
An employee navigates their new workplace, a department of Heaven devoted to archiving unanswered prayers; a tourist in Vietnam seeks solace following her son’s suicide; a young student befriends a classmate obsessed with verifying the existence of a mythical hundred-foot-tall man. A tragicomic collection that probes the miraculous, melancholy nature of survival amid loneliness, Happy Stories, Mostly considers an oblique approach to human life: In the words of one of the stories’ narrators, “I work in the dark. Like mushrooms. I don’t need light to thrive.”
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Poet Pasaribu makes their English-language debut with a remarkable collection of speculative and absurdist fiction incorporating Batak and Christian culture. In an introductory note, Pasaribu riffs on the Indonesian word hampir (almost), and its implications for queer people ("What does it mean to be almost happy? To almost get in, to be almost accepted, to be almost there"). "Ad maiorem dei gloriam" follows an elderly nun who routinely breaks the rules of her convent to wander outside its walls and lands a job as a nanny. In "Welcome to the Department of Unanswered Prayers," a recently deceased man joins the ranks of other dead people in the drab office referenced by the title, where workplace politics reign supreme. Pasaribu plumbs the depths of a Batak Protestant mother's guilt in "So What's Your Name, Sandra?" after she rejects her gay son and he dies by suicide. The free-spirited and worldly "A Young Poet's Guide to Surviving a Broken Heart," written in the second person, suggests funny and vital coping mechanisms for a poet's heartache and loneliness: "Try contacting your friends to see if they're up for dinner. Not at your place, because your room looks like a Pollock painting"). This is sure to get people talking.
