A Way To Be Happy by Caroline Adderson

In her latest short story collection A Way To Be Happy, Caroline Adderson pursues the question of happiness – the fleeting, highly-theorized, and hotly pursued topic. Through eight distinct stories, Adderson explores the dimensions and very real limitations of such a blanket term. As they investigate the lives of people and places across time and circumstance, her stories reveal that their strongest interest is in the question of what it takes to be content; to reach the kind of happiness deeply tied to a feeling of rightness or satisfaction.

Laden with questions of hospitals, procedures, pandemics, and griefs, the book bears witness to the concerns of recent years. At the same time, Adderson’s work is bound up in the every day, almost ahistorical griefs of human life: the loss of a child, the end of a marriage, the loss of a home, even the toll of being separated from one’s friends. But for all their universal appeal, Adderson’s stories remain intimately rooted in place. Though primarily set in British Columbia, exploring cities like Coquitlam, Delta, and New Westminster, the collection does not limit itself to a single province, notably locating “The Procedure” in a vivid vision of Montréal, Québec.

The book’s strong investment in a range of Canadian lives and landscapes is perhaps one of the reasons it was longlisted for the Giller Prize – one of the most prestigious book awards given to Canadian writers. The familiar red emblem that now adorns its cover is compelling, and certainly, the praise from The New York Review of Books that appears alongside it is promising, too. But I urge you to read Adderson’s work not for its prominence, but for its premise.

I urge you to read Adderson’s work not for its prominence, but for its premise.

A Way To Be Happy insists that the kinds of happy endings readers and writers have long sought through literature are not mutually exclusive with rosy reunions and fairytale futures. Instead, the experiences of Adderson’s characters contend that the happiest endings are often those that feel most right or true to the story.

The ending of “Obscure Objects”, for example, is certainly not happy in the traditional sense, but it is deeply honest, even satisfying. The story is the collection’s most metafictional, following a writer whose coworker-turned-friend requests she write her story but conceal her identity. Adderson’s narrator weaves this process into the text, quoting their conversations, self-consciously changing details about her friend’s life as she writes, and ultimately pointing to the difficulty of finding a faithful ending to her work. In the end, “Obscure Objects” reminds us that even sad stories can have satisfying endings, especially when we get to write them ourselves.

Even the book’s most heartbreaking story, “From The Archives of The Hospital For The Insane”, is committed to the question of what it might mean to have a happy ending. A highly researched and cautiously fictionalized account of the experiences of women committed to British Columbia’s Provincial Hospital for the Insane, the collection’s longest and final story is perhaps it’s most immersive, confronting readers with what it meant to be a woman (specifically a white woman) in early twentieth-century Canada.

Although the story’s protagonist, Margaret, ultimately commits desperate acts to escape her husband, the news of the surprisingly “happy outcome” of her friend Lucy’s failed escape lends a hopeful undertone to the story’s conclusion. Since the uncertainty of Lucy’s fate looms so largely over Margaret throughout the story, the text suggests that it is precisely her happy ending that bolsters Margaret, giving her the strength to choose the best possible outcome for herself, even when it requires sacrifice. As with “Homing” – a heartwarming meditation on the many meanings and ways to constitute a home – “From The Archives” is a powerful reminder that there is always more than one ending to consider.

In the end, A Way To Be Happy is deeply contradictory in the best possible way, insisting at every turn that regardless of its title, there is, luckily, no such thing as a singular way to be happy.

Caroline Adderson is the author of five novels (A Russian Sister, Ellen in Pieces, The Sky Is Falling, Sitting Practice, and A History of Forgetting), two previous collections of short stories (Pleased to Meet You and Bad Imaginings), as well as many books for young readers. Her award nominations include the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. The recipient of three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and the Marian Engel Award for mid-career achievement, Caroline lives and writes in Vancouver.

Publisher: Biblioasis (September 12, 2024)
Paperback 8″ x 5″ | 240 pages
ISBN: 9781771966221

Catherine Marcotte

Catherine Marcotte holds a Master of Arts in English Literature and Language from Queen’s University. She is a contributor at the Miramichi Reader where she writes about Canadian literature and publishing. Her essays, translations, and editorial work have been published in local and academic venues.