Whatever Makes You Happy: A Novel [Paperback]

Lisa Grunwald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 8, 2006

What does it take to be happy? How happy is happy enough? And what does “happy” mean, anyway? So asks Sally Farber–wife, mother, daughter, friend, working woman, and lover–in this wise and funny novel about a woman’s search for happiness in some of the right, and a few of the wrong, places.

Summer in the city looms long for Sally Farber when she sends her two daughters off to camp for the first time. Suddenly freed of her usual patterns in a city that becomes a grown-up’s playground,, she embarks on a journey unlike any she’s ever had–filled with guilty pleasures and guilty pains.

Caught between the past (cleaning out her childhood apartment as her demanding mother offers edicts from South Carolina) and the future (facing her first semi-empty nest), Sally finds herself unexpectedly involved with a powerful, unpredictable man.

And as she researches a book whose very topic is happiness, she must weigh the relative merits of prescriptions for its attainment offered by Aristotle and the Dalai Lama, Freud and Charles Schulz, scented candles and Zoloft, her mother and her best friend. The answer comes, in the end, from a surprising discovery, in this rich and original novel about how we can find, and ultimately embrace, both happiness and love.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sally Farber has everything a 40-year-old New Yorker could want: a loving doctor husband; two healthy, adorable daughters; great friends; and a charming book editor who used to be her lover and still calls her Cookie. Sally's fourth book is The History of Happiness, and there's the rub. The deeper she digs, the more elusive a definition of happiness becomes (is contentment just "resignation wearing a funny hat?"), and the more bedeviled she is by the guilty certainty that she isn't as happy as she should be. The great charm of Grunwald's sweet, comic novel is that it's two books: the one Sally's writing and the one about her. So why doesn't it feel more substantial? Certainly Sally's ironic enough, so you can't knock her for starving amid plenty. But there's something perfunctory about her affair with a famous artist when her girls go to sleep-away camp. Although she deems it a self-destructive act akin to cutting herself after her father's death when she was 19, the reader never doubts the affair will end without scars, and she will rediscover that happiness is a warm husband. Grunwald is smart, funny and talented enough for a reader to want one thing more—the unexpected.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Review

"A snappy, pleasant novel content with its own wit."
-- The New York Observer

“Grunwald tells the story with a wit. . . that never quite conceals the sting of wisdom just below. Perhaps it's no surprise that by the end of her well-turned and winning tale, we see and feel, as Farber does, that the pursuit of happiness is really nothing more than a recipe for misery.” 
-- Pico Iyer, Time Magazine

“From Aristotle to Edith Wharton, from laughter therapy to bedoom farce, this novel is a dictionary of delights.”
-- Cathleen Medwick, O, the Oprah Magazine

"Sally's quest for personal fulfillment allows Grunwald to muse on the roots of happiness, mining sources as diverse as Aristotle and Charles Schulz to present a porvocative array of answers. Whatever Makes You Happy is a satisfying portrait of upper-middle-class angst. But it is also the tale of a woman's pursuit of a life philosophy--and through that search, readers may discover stepping stones for their own."
-- Alissa Quart, More Magazine

“Grunwald's interweaving of scholarly quotations about happiness and excerpts of real-life research on the matter cleverly ground this novel, in which the main character is on the verge of spinning out of control as she searches for her own brand of happiness. Chock-full of penetrating and wry perceptions, this novel is recommended for all public libraries.”
-- Library Journal

“Attempting to fool everyone, but especially herself, into believing that she’s only ‘researching’ the pursuit of happiness, Sally Farber searches for that ephemeral quality in all sorts of droll places–from the writings of Voltaire to the Laughter Institute to the bed of a famous artist. To no one’s surprise, she learns that what does not lie within remains elusive without. And as Lisa Grunwald’s odyssey of slapstick erudition unfolds, Sally seems stubbornly fated to remain without her heart’s desire, until the very last page is turned. This book comprises the best of both reads: a serious romp, and a saucy philosophical sashay.”
-- Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and The Breakdown Lane

“Smart and exceedingly charming.”
-- W Magazine

“Grunwald explores the meaning of happiness, drawing inspiration from poets and pop icons…readers may find themselves considering what underlies their own happiness–and what they would risk to find more.”
-- People Magazine

Praise for Lisa Grunwald
“Her poetic gift for language, her sympathy for her characters, and her knowledge of how their emotions grow, shift, and collide all work together to help realize the large ambitions of this novel.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times, about The Theory of Everything


“Beautiful, bizarre, and breathtaking . . . Harrowing in its pace, fearless in its depiction of the most tender emotions, this is a novel of exquisite grace. . . . A mesmerizing celebration of family love in all its sweetness and ferocity.”
–TK, Chicago Tribune, about New Year’s Eve


From the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Random House Trade Paperbacks (August 8, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812973216
• ISBN-13: 978-0812973211
• Product Dimensions: 5.3 x 0.6 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #314,104 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Lisa Grunwald is the author of the novels Whatever Makes You Happy, New Year's Eve, The Theory of Everything, and Summer. Along with her husband, Stephen J. Adler, she edited the bestselling anthologies Women's Letters and Letters of the Century. Grunwald is a former contributing editor to Life and a former features editor of Esquire. Find her on Facebook, at Lisa Grunwald's Author Page, follow her on Twitter at lisa_grunwald, or at www.lisagrunwald.net

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacularly funny and unforgettably poignant, June 6, 2005

By 

L. Novick - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whatever Makes You Happy: A Novel (Paperback)

This is a beautifully written, finely drawn book -- not to be missed! Grunwald's prose is luminous, and her storytelling sublime. The reader cannot help laughing out loud at the many hilarious moments, and Sally's complicated internal struggle to figure out what makes her happy holds your attention rapt until the very last page. This is a book that you cannot put down, because Grunwald creates such an intense feeling of intimacy with Sally that you cannot bear to stop reading until you find out her fate. Interspersing the narrative with Sally's own research for her book on the history of happiness is a stroke of genius on Grunwald's part, and these sections add levity and nuance to an already profound novel about the human condition. This is a great book by a great writer.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book makes you feel like it's an old friend talking to you..., August 14, 2005

By 

A. Marsh (Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whatever Makes You Happy: A Novel (Paperback)

This book is very real and compelling. It's like it's an old friend sitting with you telling you a poignant tale while you both sip tea. Anyone who has ever struggled with what it means for you to be personally happy, what happiness means to you, will enjoy this book. I've had some of the same thoughts and feelings that the fictional Sally Farber has, but this is the first book I've seen to detail these issues in such a tangible, creative way. You won't want to put the book down and the reading is effortless. You also will learn about recent scientific studies on happiness, as Sally researches her book on happiness, which is great but doesn't at all feel like you're reading anything close to a textbook. It's a book about an author struggling to write a book on happiness as she struggles with the issue in her own life. This book is a true gem.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Defining Happiness, July 23, 2005

By 

Susan Wakefield "bookworm" (Boston USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Whatever Makes You Happy: A Novel (Paperback)

Sally Farber is researching a book she is commissioned to write on "Happiness" - a mother of two, a successful writer, and wife to a successful doctor - seemingly she "has it all," yet surprisingly she is the furthest from happiness herself. We sift through insurmountable research and definitions of happiness with her; retracing happiness in her childhood, searching all corners of society for a real definition, from the laughter institute to therapy, philosophical theories to infidelity. "What if happiness is pleasure?" Sally asks herself, and subsequently embarks on a lusty affair exploring the world of unadulterated, thoughtless pleasure and instant self gratification.
Is contentment happiness or resignation wearing a funny hat? To see Sally's difficulty with the topic, her own insurmountable questions, growing inner confusion and subsequent struggle with it, is so very accurate a reflection of today's generation. As Grunwald eloquently notes, people today "still [think] they need something else."


Poignant, well crafted, researched, thoughtful, insightful, clever: Grunwald shows us a definition of happiness that does not lie in acquiring the next thing, wanting what "she" has, seeking out the next sexual conquest, or finding answers with a therapist - happiness, real happiness, is "something between the sea and the tiger [that] sounds like a good idea." (213)
Magnificent work, Grunwald.