Often I Am Happy
A Novel
Failed to add items
Sorry, we are unable to add the item because your shopping cart is already at capacity.
Add to basket failed.
Please try again later
Add to Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Remove from Wish List failed.
Please try again later
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Select 1 audiobook a month from our entire collection.
Listen to your selected audiobooks as long as you're a member.
Auto-renews at $8.99/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Often I Am Happy
Narrated by:
Maya Waterman
Buy Now for $20.37
-
Narrated by:
-
Maya Waterman
About this listen
"Often I am happy and yet I want to cry; / For no heart fully shares my joy." -- B.S. Ingemann
Ellinor is seventy. Her husband Georg has just passed away, and she is struck with the need to confide in someone. She addresses Anna, her long-dead best friend, who was also Georg's first wife. Fully aware of the absurdity of speaking to someone who cannot hear her, Ellinor nevertheless finds it meaningful to divulge long-held secrets and burdens of her past: her mother's heartbreaking pride; Ellinor's courtship with her first husband; their seemingly charmed friendship with Anna and Georg; the disastrous ski trip that shattered the two couples' lives. Wry and mellow yet infused with subdued emotion, this philosophical, lyrical novel moves in parallel narrative threads while questioning the assumptions we cherish concerning identity and love.
Critic Reviews
"A compassionate and often edifying commentary on the elasticity of love, the strength it takes to move forward after a death, and the power of forgiveness."—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"[OFTEN I AM HAPPY] possesses quiet grace."—Kirkus
"The pleasures of this short novel are those of watching a foreign film that transports you to an unfamiliar emotional terrain."—Metro Toronto
No reviews yet
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.