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The co-op bookstore for avid readers
Are You Happy?: Stories
Reader Score
77%
77% of readers
recommend this book
Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 3 reviews on
"Don't let Are You Happy? pass you by: There's not a word out of place in these brilliant Midwestern sketches. They're lonesome, for sure . . . But they're also hilarious." --Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post "These nine startling stories capture the subtleties of feeling--and being made to feel--out of place . . .. Ostlund proves herself a master of the form."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Nine exquisite stories that explore class, desire, identity, and the specter of violence that looms daily over women and the LGBTQ+ community. An aspiring veterinarian survives a plane crash and starts life over in California. A woman mourns the loss of her childhood friend's innocence and rethinks justice. A queer teacher's sense of safety in the classroom is destroyed. With settings ranging from small-town Minnesota to New Mexico, from bars and bedrooms to a furniture store and a community college, Are You Happy? casts a spotlight on people who try--and often fail--to make peace with their pasts while navigating their present relationships and notions of self. In prose that is evocative and restrained, unpredictable and masterful, Lori Ostlund offers a darkly humorous and compassionate examination of America's preoccupation with loneliness, happiness, guns, and violence.
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Nine exquisite stories that explore class, desire, identity, and the specter of violence that looms daily over women and the LGBTQ+ community. An aspiring veterinarian survives a plane crash and starts life over in California. A woman mourns the loss of her childhood friend's innocence and rethinks justice. A queer teacher's sense of safety in the classroom is destroyed. With settings ranging from small-town Minnesota to New Mexico, from bars and bedrooms to a furniture store and a community college, Are You Happy? casts a spotlight on people who try--and often fail--to make peace with their pasts while navigating their present relationships and notions of self. In prose that is evocative and restrained, unpredictable and masterful, Lori Ostlund offers a darkly humorous and compassionate examination of America's preoccupation with loneliness, happiness, guns, and violence.
Book Details
- Publisher: Astra House
- Publish Date: May 6th, 2025
- Pages: 272
- Language: English
- Edition: undefined - undefined
- Dimensions: 8.40in - 5.80in - 1.20in - 0.85lb
- EAN: 9781662603020
- Categories: • Short Stories (single author)• LGBTQ+ - General• Feminist
About the Author
Lori Ostlund is the author of Are You Happy? (Astra House, May 2025). Her novel After the Parade (Scribner, 2015) was a B&N Discover pick, a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her first book, The Bigness of the World (UGA, 2009; Scribner, 2016), received the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the California Book Award for First Fiction. Her stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories, the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, ZYZZYVA, and New England Review, among other places. Lori has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She has served as the series editor of the Flannery O'Connor Award since 2022 and is on the board of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She lives in San Francisco with her wife, the writer Anne Raeff. www.loriostlund.com
Critics’ reviews
Praise for this book
"Are You Happy? is bright, swift, and heartbreakingly direct in its portrayal of how home can sometimes leave a lingering bruise. Seriously, how does she do it?! Lori Ostlund is funny and wry; her work cuts to the quick. Every story I read made me feel deeply known. I've long been a fan of hers and this book does not disappoint. A short story collection that is truly all hits, no misses."
--Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things "When you finish a short story by Lori Ostlund, you feel fundamentally changed in the same way you do when you finish a great novel. The world as you've known it before feels different now, more complex, richer, full of new depths, and often funnier. I don't know if there's anyone in the country writing better short stories than Lori Ostlund at the moment. Not for my money, at least. This is as near to perfect as a short story collection can get."
--Andrew Porter, author of The Disappeared
--Kristen Arnett, author of With Teeth and Mostly Dead Things "When you finish a short story by Lori Ostlund, you feel fundamentally changed in the same way you do when you finish a great novel. The world as you've known it before feels different now, more complex, richer, full of new depths, and often funnier. I don't know if there's anyone in the country writing better short stories than Lori Ostlund at the moment. Not for my money, at least. This is as near to perfect as a short story collection can get."
--Andrew Porter, author of The Disappeared