Happy Life

From the acclaimed author of Evenings and Weekends, a polyphonic tour de force set during two days thirty years apart in London

"This makes no sense, he thought. Look at your wonderful life…"

Hackney, August 2023. Tommy leaves work early. He’s hungry for a little more pleasure before summer is over. It’s a beautiful day, he’s surrounded by friends, and adored by his boyfriend, but as the day hurries on, his life’s happiness becomes harder to grasp.

Thirty years earlier, Tommy lived as a child on these same streets with his father, Maxy, and his mother, Gráinne, a nurse from County Roscommon who lost her own father at seven in circumstances no one wants to talk about. Gráinne is funny, and kind, but her feelings are big and unwieldy. She loves her little family, so why does she want to run away from it?

When the community gather for one final night at a beloved local bar closing its doors for good, the loves of Tommy’s life wait for his arrival. But as the party escalates, Tommy still hasn’t arrived.

A story which sprawls across three generations, moving from the East End of London to the West of Ireland, from queer bars and saunas, to bomb shelters during the Blitz, Happy Life is a profound and moving portrait of people who love being alive, and can’t go on living.