A Way to Be Happy by Caroline Adderson
CBC Books | Posted: August 13, 2024 6:38 PM | Last Updated: October 11
A short story collection exploring happiness.
On New Year's Eve, a pair of addicts robs a string of high-end parties in order to fund their own recovery. A recently separated woman relocates to a small northern town, where she receives a life-changing visitation, and a Russian hitman, suffering from a mysterious lung ailment, retrieves long-buried memories of his past. In the nineteenth century, a disparate group of women coalesce in the attempt to aid a young girl in her escape from a hospital for the insane. These are but some of the remarkable characters who populate these stories, all of them grappling with conflicts ranging from mundane to extraordinary. Caroline Adderson's A Way to Be Happy considers what it means to find happiness—and how often it comes through the grace of others. (From Biblioasis)
A Way to Be Happy was longlisted for the 2024 Giller Prize.
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Caroline Adderson is the Vancouver-based author of five novels, including The Sky is Falling, Ellen in Pieces and A Russian Sister. She has also published two short story collections, including the 1993 Governor General's Literary Award finalist Bad Imaginings.
Adderson's awards include three B.C. Book Prizes, a National Magazine Award Gold Medal for Fiction and she has received the 2006 Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement. She is also a three-time winner of the CBC Literary Prizes.