When Ellinor addresses her best friend Anna, she does not expect a reply. Anna has been dead for forty years, killed in the same skiing accident that claimed Henning: Ellinor's first husband and Anna's lover.

Ellinor instead tells her that Georg has died - Georg who was once Anna's, but whom Ellinor came to love in her place, and whom she came to care for, along with Anna's two infant sons. Yet with Georg's death Ellinor finds herself able to cut the ties of her assumed life with surprising ease.

Returning to the area of Copenhagen where she grew up, away from the adopted comfort of the home she shared with Georg, Ellinor finds herself addressing her own history: her marriage to Henning, their seemingly charmed friendship with the newly-wed Anna and Georg, right back to her own mother's story - a story of heartbreaking pride.

Because there are some secrets - both our own and of others - that we can only share with the dead. Secrets that nonetheless shape who we are and who we love. Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grondahl is a profoundly moving work of fiction.

Wry and mellow yet infused with subdued emotion, this deeply moving novel, from one of Europe's leading contemporary novelists, invites us to question the assumptions we harbour concerning identity and love.

About the Author
Jens Christian Grondahl was born in 1959 in Copenhagen. After studying philosophy, he was trained as a film director at The National Danish Film School. His first novel was published in 1985. He is the author of nineteen novels, seven volumes of essays and three children's books. Several novels of his have been shortlisted for the IMPAC Prize, the Prix Medici Etranger and the Prix Femina Etranger. His novels in English translation include Silence in October, Lucca, Virginia and An Altered Light. He lives in Copenhagen with his wife and two daughters.

Reviews
In Danish novelist Grondahl's stunning latest, a recently widowed 70-year-old woman reexamines her life and past decisions . . . 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 *
This atmosphere of nonchalance, of indifference, of cracked glass, is the signature atmosphere of Jens Christian Grondahl . . . Often I Am Happy is [among Grondahl's works] one of the most condensed, most suffused with grief and mixed beauty . . . His characters, so perfectly drawn, nevertheless thrive only as they disappear. The real, in the work of this great novelist, also has about it something of the haziness of memory. * Livres Hebdo *



Book Information
ISBN 9781509842407
Author Jens Christian Grondahl
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Picador
Publisher Pan Macmillan
Weight(grams) 136g
Dimensions(mm) 197mm * 130mm * 10mm