Noe, short for Noel, is a teenage orphan who recently moved from Dublin to live with his grandparents in a small Irish town. Just prior, he enrolled in a seminary with the thought of seeking a priestly calling, but dropped out. Instead, he is now trying to find direction in life. Suddenly, in his small community of Faha, it stops raining, and the sun comes out. The sun never stays out in this rainy realm of the world, but it does here.
The sun, of course, metaphorically stands for new knowledge’s light to shine on all of life. Although Faha’s residents are first overjoyed with the natural light, it exposes problems and details not before seen. In a story set 60 years ago, the Irish government is spreading electricity to even the smallest places. An employee named Christy enters the town to dwell in Noe’s house, and it soon becomes clear that he came not at the electric company’s bidding but at his heart’s tugging.
In the ensuing drama, Noe learns about love – not just the sentimental sort either. No, he learns about enduring love, the kind that brings about broken hearts lasting a lifetime. He sees value in being the outlier in a village by doing one’s own thing when everyone else does another. He learns what happiness truly means. This tale could only be set in Ireland, oppressed for centuries by the British so that the Irish became enchanted with the joy of the smallest things. Noe went to seminary to learn to live; he left confused; and in these days in Faha, he learns to live again. From Christy, his grandparents, and the entire village, he learns happiness.
The narrative grips from the beginning, not from an titillating plot line but from the words’ innate strength. Niall Williams knows how to enliven a good story that consumes a reader’s mind with vivid imagery, strong central ideas, and deep meaning. A bookish friend recommended this work to me “without reservation,” and I will concur with that recommendation. Like the sun in Faha, this book exposes new light in the human pursuit of happiness.
This is Happiness: A Novel
By Niall Williams
Copyright (c) 2019
Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN13 9781635576313
Page Count: 380
Genre: Fiction
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