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bgg616's review against another edition
5.0
Although this theme was there under the surface, it wasn’t until the final pages I realized the novel asks the question “What is resilience”? London is the setting of this story. But it is not the London of commerce, tourism, history, royalty and wealth. Rather, it is the story of the layers of the city we don’t see. There are people and animals who are there but hidden; they survive by staying out of view. The animals in this story are foxes and the humans are immigrants. We can see them if we look, but we often fail to notice.
Jean is an American who has spent her life working with wildlife that humans see as pests and predators- coyotes in Massachusetts and now in London, foxes. Eventually this work ended her marriage and alienated her son. Her job is to see what others don’t, searching for clues that the animals she is studying are there. In London she is studying urban foxes, who have increasingly moved into all parts of the city.
Attila is an African from Ghana. I describe him this way because I have recently found Americans confuse South Americans from Guyana and people from Ghana. Attila is a striking tall figure, and a psychiatrist who specializes in the trauma caused by war. That these two people meet at all is extraordinary, but what ties them together is that they are both constantly looking beyond the surface of the city’s activity.
The immigrants in this novel are primarily Africans, many who are compatriots of Attila. When his niece and her son disappear, it is this remarkable network of Ghanaians in London who spring to action. Attila has worked in many countries including places in conflict in Africa, and remarkably he crosses paths with ordinary people he had met in those settings. Not just Attila, the psychiatrist, but these immigrants and refugees are brimming with humanity.
Jean is a woman who has ended up alone in life. One of the ways she earns a living is by constructing rooftop gardens. She does this not only for the well off, but for people, such as an agoraphobic woman, who crave the peace of the plants and natural activity of gardens. These are not the walled gardens of the London elite, built to exclude, but gardens that heal. Like the foxes that Jean hunts, these gardens are hidden on the roofs of buildings.
As different as they are, a renowned African psychiatrist who has spent his life in warzones, and an American, half Turkish, nomadic woman who is an advocate of urban wildlife, they share a common commitment to the marginalized in our world. This is a profoundly human story. It moved me in ways that will keep it in my mind.
The writer was born in Scotland, and raised in Sierra Leone and the UK. She is Director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and currently a judge for the 2019 Giller Prize. Happiness is currently short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize, the Jhalak Prize, and nominated for the European Prize for Fiction. (https://aminattaforna.com/about-aminatta-forna.html) .
Jean is an American who has spent her life working with wildlife that humans see as pests and predators- coyotes in Massachusetts and now in London, foxes. Eventually this work ended her marriage and alienated her son. Her job is to see what others don’t, searching for clues that the animals she is studying are there. In London she is studying urban foxes, who have increasingly moved into all parts of the city.
Attila is an African from Ghana. I describe him this way because I have recently found Americans confuse South Americans from Guyana and people from Ghana. Attila is a striking tall figure, and a psychiatrist who specializes in the trauma caused by war. That these two people meet at all is extraordinary, but what ties them together is that they are both constantly looking beyond the surface of the city’s activity.
The immigrants in this novel are primarily Africans, many who are compatriots of Attila. When his niece and her son disappear, it is this remarkable network of Ghanaians in London who spring to action. Attila has worked in many countries including places in conflict in Africa, and remarkably he crosses paths with ordinary people he had met in those settings. Not just Attila, the psychiatrist, but these immigrants and refugees are brimming with humanity.
Jean is a woman who has ended up alone in life. One of the ways she earns a living is by constructing rooftop gardens. She does this not only for the well off, but for people, such as an agoraphobic woman, who crave the peace of the plants and natural activity of gardens. These are not the walled gardens of the London elite, built to exclude, but gardens that heal. Like the foxes that Jean hunts, these gardens are hidden on the roofs of buildings.
As different as they are, a renowned African psychiatrist who has spent his life in warzones, and an American, half Turkish, nomadic woman who is an advocate of urban wildlife, they share a common commitment to the marginalized in our world. This is a profoundly human story. It moved me in ways that will keep it in my mind.
The writer was born in Scotland, and raised in Sierra Leone and the UK. She is Director of the Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice at Georgetown University and Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University and currently a judge for the 2019 Giller Prize. Happiness is currently short-listed for the Ondaatje Prize, the Jhalak Prize, and nominated for the European Prize for Fiction. (https://aminattaforna.com/about-aminatta-forna.html) .
jaclyn_sixminutesforme's review against another edition
4.0
Rating and review to come following announcement of booktube prize final
black_girl_reading's review against another edition
5.0
This book tells the story of multiple folks, primarily from various African nations (plus an American scientist and a British scientist) as they converge in London by random chance, human kindness, and one common connection. I loved that Attila, a character from the memory of love showed back up in this novel as the common thread, because he got a bad rap in that book and I knew there was a man I liked in there. He was such a sensory person, and so well written. So warm and compelling. This book touches so much on human nature and on the fragility and beauty of life, in such visceral ways you come to know the characters as people. I loved as well the sly way that Forna picks apart the privilege of whiteness in London, and the disruptive racism there, and also gives us a glimpse of the communities that immigrants build and the spaces they inhabit together. And there were animals! So many foxes and parakeets, and coyotes. Forna does not shy away from the heavy stuff, from the brutality of life, but she is so adept at making it just part of the human condition. It’s a motivator to live with joy, not a clarion call to be more fearful. I appreciate that she can tell the most horrific stories of war that stick with me, but that in the same book she can give me characters that I come to know and love and expect to share dinner with when I next run into them. What a book.
vasta's review against another edition
5.0
There are foxes in our backyard. I have only seen one once, but have seen their tracks in the snow or the frost, and occasionally in the wet spring mud. Prior to reading Ms. Forna’s novel, I had never thought about the interior lives of these foxes and how they experience the world, but now I can’t stop thinking about them. Happiness is ostensibly a novel about connections between people and the impacts of trauma, but really, it is a novel about being in touch with the living world around us, and how so much delight can be found when we commune with the urban natural environment.
brmills's review against another edition
emotional
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition
5.0
‘At that time of the day Waterloo Bridge is busy with shoppers and weekend workers who make their way on foot across the bridge to Waterloo Station.’
On that day and at that time, a fox makes its way across Waterloo Bridge. Among those distracted by the sight are Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes, and Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist in London to deliver a keynote speech at a conference. This chance encounter defines a starting point for a series of interactions between Jean and Attila which will take the reader on a journey through lives and places. From within the anonymity of London, our attention is drawn to these two people, and then beyond them.
Attila has two objectives in London. The first is to deliver a keynote speech on trauma, the second is to contact Ama Fremah, the daughter of friends who has not called home for a while. Attila discovers that Ama has been caught in an immigration crackdown. While Attila locates Ama quite quickly, her young son Tano is missing.
Attila runs into Jean again, by chance, while trying to find Tano. Jean mobilises the network of men she uses as volunteer fox spotters. These men, with their broader contacts among the people who work jobs on the London streets, band together to help. At the same time as the search for Tano continues, a situation involving a friend leads Attila to take on a consulting case. Jean’s life is changed by her contact with Attila and her involvement in his world. At the same time, she is caught up in a debate about urban foxes, about fears and the (oh so) human desire for control.
As the story unfolds, as both the lives of Jean and Attila become more complicated because of their interactions, both are drawn to question things that they had accepted in the past. Attila revisits the keynote speech he had prepared on trauma.
‘Attila picked up the pen again and traced his thoughts on paper.’
And then:
‘He sat back and reread the words. At the top of the paper he wrote: ‘HAPPINESS’ and underlined it with two dark strokes, and underneath he wrote the words: ‘THE PARADOX’.’
There’s so much to think about and to enjoy about this novel. I’m finding it impossible to assemble the right words to do justice to Ms Forna’s multi-layered story about belonging, about chance encounters changing lives and about assumptions of happiness. I loved the way the characters were developed. Each of the links in the novel made sense, seemed natural rather than contrived. I finished the novel content. I’m still thinking about ‘Happiness’.
Note: My thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
On that day and at that time, a fox makes its way across Waterloo Bridge. Among those distracted by the sight are Jean, an American studying the habits of urban foxes, and Attila, a Ghanaian psychiatrist in London to deliver a keynote speech at a conference. This chance encounter defines a starting point for a series of interactions between Jean and Attila which will take the reader on a journey through lives and places. From within the anonymity of London, our attention is drawn to these two people, and then beyond them.
Attila has two objectives in London. The first is to deliver a keynote speech on trauma, the second is to contact Ama Fremah, the daughter of friends who has not called home for a while. Attila discovers that Ama has been caught in an immigration crackdown. While Attila locates Ama quite quickly, her young son Tano is missing.
Attila runs into Jean again, by chance, while trying to find Tano. Jean mobilises the network of men she uses as volunteer fox spotters. These men, with their broader contacts among the people who work jobs on the London streets, band together to help. At the same time as the search for Tano continues, a situation involving a friend leads Attila to take on a consulting case. Jean’s life is changed by her contact with Attila and her involvement in his world. At the same time, she is caught up in a debate about urban foxes, about fears and the (oh so) human desire for control.
As the story unfolds, as both the lives of Jean and Attila become more complicated because of their interactions, both are drawn to question things that they had accepted in the past. Attila revisits the keynote speech he had prepared on trauma.
‘Attila picked up the pen again and traced his thoughts on paper.’
And then:
‘He sat back and reread the words. At the top of the paper he wrote: ‘HAPPINESS’ and underlined it with two dark strokes, and underneath he wrote the words: ‘THE PARADOX’.’
There’s so much to think about and to enjoy about this novel. I’m finding it impossible to assemble the right words to do justice to Ms Forna’s multi-layered story about belonging, about chance encounters changing lives and about assumptions of happiness. I loved the way the characters were developed. Each of the links in the novel made sense, seemed natural rather than contrived. I finished the novel content. I’m still thinking about ‘Happiness’.
Note: My thanks to Grove Atlantic and NetGalley for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.
Jennifer Cameron-Smith
ledge's review against another edition
Fairly standard novel of lives at a crossroads, with some good parts about trauma and victimhood.
lucyannunwin's review against another edition
4.0
“You know how it is with white people. You say it’s race, they tell you you are mistaken. Then they say it’s because of your race when you say it is not.”
So says one of the characters in Happiness. So it is with great caution that I, from my white middle-class perspective, offer my thoughts on this wonderful book about ... race.
Admittedly, it covers a million things besides - the core of happiness, the effect of trauma, dementia, grief: for those that have died, for those that have changed, for relationships that change, small pleasures, passing moments. But behind it all is race.
Happiness follows two main characters from the moment they collide on Waterloo Bridge. Internationally-renowned Ghanaian psychiatrist, Attila, is in town to deliver a keynote on his area of expertise: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, while American scientist Jean has been commissioned by Southwark council to study the urban fox population. Both characters bring to life a hidden London some of us only ever brush up against.
Through Jean’s focussed and compassionate environmentalism we see the nesting colony of green parakeets in a dead tree, the foxes making dens in abandoned containers, the birds that can be enticed to the most urban of rooftops. Through Attila’s open and intimate international perspective we see the culture brought to London from all over the world, but mostly from the diaspora of a multitude of African nations. It’s mainly shown through food: Attila eats like a king in places many Londoners may walk straight past. He favours tips for restaurants that specialise in individual cuisines, but then is introduced to a place where they all come together:
“The clientele were men mostly. Some looked north African, others from the Horn of Africa, a couple of well-dressed Malians in suits and slim loafers, a Nigerian fellow with tribal marks. A young woman in business clothes sat alone and read a newspaper … A buffet of dishes was kept warm under hot lights. Four kinds of rice: broken, basmati, beans and rice, country. Couscous, too. Chickpea porridge, fufu, cassava boiled and pounded, yams, plantain, steamed and fried. Mealie meal. There was a stew of eggs and coriander Attila had once tasted in Eritrea. Different kinds of plasas, okra, potato leaves and cassava leaves. Emmanuel grinned. ‘Nigerians,’ he said. ‘But they bring in cooks from all over.’”
The link I’m cautious to make, is the parallel between the those two hidden worlds: London’s wildlife and London’s immigrant communities. “Churchgoers dressed in their best, men and women in colours and fabrics created for a faraway sun, floating like mid-winter butterflies...”
Before studying foxes, Jean tracked Coyotes in her home town of Greenhampton, Massachusetts. “They knew that at night coyote walked the streets of Greenhampton. They knew that the animals crossed lawns, circled darkened houses. They knew that some coyote returned to the hills while others slid from view when the first house lights went on. By the time people were running their car engines the coyotes had slipped beneath the surface of the day, below the floorboards of abandoned buildings, in the garden sheds, to their dens in empty plots and the edges of parking lots. In towns and cities across the country, coyotes lived side by side with men, though only the coyotes knew it.”
In the main storyline of Happiness, a child goes missing and Jean and Attila call on their networks of friends to help find him. The team is made up of street sweepers, traffic wardens, door-men, security guards. A community of immigrants who own London by night. Do they, too, then ‘slip beneath the surface of the day?’ It’s certainly true that they live side by side with white London, as though invisible. Hidden in plain sight. Symbolically, one of the crew of helpers is a living statue from the southbank, complete with silver body makeup. To the average London resident he’s as good as invisible as an individual, but Jean and Attila see the man - Osman - beneath the skin colour, even if that skin colour is silver.
As the book progresses one errant fox is accused of hurting a child. Jean becomes the lone voice standing up against a public outcry. As a guest on a talk radio show she is ridiculed, and her facts and statistics dismissed, as calls rise for sterilisation, or a cull of all foxes. It’s not a long leap to imagine the same phone-in guests demanding immigration controls. They share a determination to see the unfamiliar as threatening. When reading details of a hunted coyote towards the end of the novel, the action hits with a gut-wrenching power. No parallel is explicitly drawn, but I can’t help think it’s so emotional because it represents a lynching.
But perhaps my mind is racing too far. What is certainly true, is that Jean and Attila both really see what and who is right in front of them, and they appreciate and engage without judgement.
As I mentioned, there are a million things besides in this novel. It is a complex woven tapestry of ideas and information. At times the many strands seem to fly off in too many directions, but it is worth the patience it takes to pull the threads together. The characters are wonderful and it is full of fascinating insights: I loved learning about the teams that manage war zones and Jean’s vision of the order in which a deserted London would return the wild.
And as the title suggests, there is much philosophising on the key to happiness. The answer? Maybe food, music, dancing, expecting the worst and surviving it, breaking down fake constructs, but mostly people. The communities of immigrants that hold London together, ready to help, existing side by side with their neighbours, in the light of day. It is perhaps no surprise that Osman feeds a stray fox. And that Komba, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, has no trouble spotting a grey seal as it bobs its head above the water of the Thames.
So says one of the characters in Happiness. So it is with great caution that I, from my white middle-class perspective, offer my thoughts on this wonderful book about ... race.
Admittedly, it covers a million things besides - the core of happiness, the effect of trauma, dementia, grief: for those that have died, for those that have changed, for relationships that change, small pleasures, passing moments. But behind it all is race.
Happiness follows two main characters from the moment they collide on Waterloo Bridge. Internationally-renowned Ghanaian psychiatrist, Attila, is in town to deliver a keynote on his area of expertise: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, while American scientist Jean has been commissioned by Southwark council to study the urban fox population. Both characters bring to life a hidden London some of us only ever brush up against.
Through Jean’s focussed and compassionate environmentalism we see the nesting colony of green parakeets in a dead tree, the foxes making dens in abandoned containers, the birds that can be enticed to the most urban of rooftops. Through Attila’s open and intimate international perspective we see the culture brought to London from all over the world, but mostly from the diaspora of a multitude of African nations. It’s mainly shown through food: Attila eats like a king in places many Londoners may walk straight past. He favours tips for restaurants that specialise in individual cuisines, but then is introduced to a place where they all come together:
“The clientele were men mostly. Some looked north African, others from the Horn of Africa, a couple of well-dressed Malians in suits and slim loafers, a Nigerian fellow with tribal marks. A young woman in business clothes sat alone and read a newspaper … A buffet of dishes was kept warm under hot lights. Four kinds of rice: broken, basmati, beans and rice, country. Couscous, too. Chickpea porridge, fufu, cassava boiled and pounded, yams, plantain, steamed and fried. Mealie meal. There was a stew of eggs and coriander Attila had once tasted in Eritrea. Different kinds of plasas, okra, potato leaves and cassava leaves. Emmanuel grinned. ‘Nigerians,’ he said. ‘But they bring in cooks from all over.’”
The link I’m cautious to make, is the parallel between the those two hidden worlds: London’s wildlife and London’s immigrant communities. “Churchgoers dressed in their best, men and women in colours and fabrics created for a faraway sun, floating like mid-winter butterflies...”
Before studying foxes, Jean tracked Coyotes in her home town of Greenhampton, Massachusetts. “They knew that at night coyote walked the streets of Greenhampton. They knew that the animals crossed lawns, circled darkened houses. They knew that some coyote returned to the hills while others slid from view when the first house lights went on. By the time people were running their car engines the coyotes had slipped beneath the surface of the day, below the floorboards of abandoned buildings, in the garden sheds, to their dens in empty plots and the edges of parking lots. In towns and cities across the country, coyotes lived side by side with men, though only the coyotes knew it.”
In the main storyline of Happiness, a child goes missing and Jean and Attila call on their networks of friends to help find him. The team is made up of street sweepers, traffic wardens, door-men, security guards. A community of immigrants who own London by night. Do they, too, then ‘slip beneath the surface of the day?’ It’s certainly true that they live side by side with white London, as though invisible. Hidden in plain sight. Symbolically, one of the crew of helpers is a living statue from the southbank, complete with silver body makeup. To the average London resident he’s as good as invisible as an individual, but Jean and Attila see the man - Osman - beneath the skin colour, even if that skin colour is silver.
As the book progresses one errant fox is accused of hurting a child. Jean becomes the lone voice standing up against a public outcry. As a guest on a talk radio show she is ridiculed, and her facts and statistics dismissed, as calls rise for sterilisation, or a cull of all foxes. It’s not a long leap to imagine the same phone-in guests demanding immigration controls. They share a determination to see the unfamiliar as threatening. When reading details of a hunted coyote towards the end of the novel, the action hits with a gut-wrenching power. No parallel is explicitly drawn, but I can’t help think it’s so emotional because it represents a lynching.
But perhaps my mind is racing too far. What is certainly true, is that Jean and Attila both really see what and who is right in front of them, and they appreciate and engage without judgement.
As I mentioned, there are a million things besides in this novel. It is a complex woven tapestry of ideas and information. At times the many strands seem to fly off in too many directions, but it is worth the patience it takes to pull the threads together. The characters are wonderful and it is full of fascinating insights: I loved learning about the teams that manage war zones and Jean’s vision of the order in which a deserted London would return the wild.
And as the title suggests, there is much philosophising on the key to happiness. The answer? Maybe food, music, dancing, expecting the worst and surviving it, breaking down fake constructs, but mostly people. The communities of immigrants that hold London together, ready to help, existing side by side with their neighbours, in the light of day. It is perhaps no surprise that Osman feeds a stray fox. And that Komba, a former child soldier from Sierra Leone, has no trouble spotting a grey seal as it bobs its head above the water of the Thames.
elizabethbest's review against another edition
5.0
(Goodreads Giveaway Win)
I really enjoyed reading this book! The characters were very real and it was written beautifully. It didn't feel like there was a plot (there was, it felt more like an insight into the characters life) but this added to it. The ending was wrapped up very well, and certainly makes you think.
I really enjoyed reading this book! The characters were very real and it was written beautifully. It didn't feel like there was a plot (there was, it felt more like an insight into the characters life) but this added to it. The ending was wrapped up very well, and certainly makes you think.