The Sad Truth About Happiness: A Novel (P.S.) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "In my family, which is middle-class, white, loving, and mildly claustrophobic, I was the child known for contentedness..." (more)
Key Phrases: custody order, Gian Luigi, The Tad Truth, Maggie Selgrin (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Set in Vancouver, Anne Giardini's debut novel, The Sad Truth About Happiness, follows the life of 32-year-old Maggie, a well-adjusted radiation technologist, as she tries to discover the true nature of happiness. She knows she cannot look to her two sisters as examples: her older sister, Janet, burdened with three kids, is on tranquilizers, while Lucy, the younger, has always been difficult and discontented. Maggie's love life, however, is blossoming, with three new boyfriends (including a doctor and a lawyer). Meanwhile, Maggie's friend, Rebecca, who designs quizzes for women's magazines, tests Maggie with a quiz that purports to measure expected life span. When they learn, according to the quiz, that Maggie might die in three months unless she discovers true happiness, Maggie takes the light-hearted results seriously and sets off on her quest.

Around the same time, Lucy, who has moved to Italy, becomes pregnant by an older Italian man. She flees back to Canada, to the arms of good-hearted, innocent Ryan, who has offered to marry her. When her baby arrives, so does the Italian father, to take his son home to Italy. This is when the novel develops some far-fetched plot twists, as Maggie (who suddenly acts completely out of character) kidnaps the infant and takes off for Quebec with Rebecca, hiding in a small town apparently peopled only by good-hearted Quebecois women. While the author shows a literary flair, particularly in her descriptions of the sky and weather ("the dove- and pearl- and abalone-coloured clouds," "hail the size of infants' teeth"), and draws characters that are, for the most part, believable, the book (like Maggie's evasive happiness) is marred by series of unlikely events and coincidences. --Mark Frutkin, Amazon.ca --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

This charming though overwritten debut from novelist Carol Shields's eldest daughter hinges on the sympathetic protagonist's realization that she is "not completely" happy, an insight that surprises her when a magazine quiz devised to predict longevity calculates that she has but three months to live. Thirty-something Maggie Selgrin, an unmarried radiation technologist in a Vancouver hospital, has always been the even-tempered middle daughter in a remarkably wholesome family. Despite her professional stability, solid friendships and close family, the quiz triggers her admission of discontent. Not only does she ache for romance (she links joy with the idea of a relationship), but she realizes she has always subsumed her needs to those of her more temperamental sisters. Maggie flounders and fumbles to regain her emotional footing before no less than three men enliven her static existence and she becomes embroiled in the kidnapping of her sister Lucy's baby. Giardini's meditative, hyper-descriptive prose can bog down the plot, but readers will surely relate to her likable heroine. And if the story offers no novel lessons about life, love or the pursuit of happiness ("Happiness evades capture, dissolving like a melody into the air, eluding even the most delicate, careful grasp"), it does provide a pleasantly entertaining journey. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (August 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060741775
• ISBN-13: 978-0060741778
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,103,065 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Life is perhaps after all simply this thing and then the next", September 17, 2005

By	M. J Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Sad Truth About Happiness: A Novel (Hardcover)

Happiness, motherhood, and the mysteries of life are the themes of The Sad Truth About Happiness, a delicately written novel that explores the nuances and simple choices of domestic life. The story centers on thirty-two-year-old Maggie, who is told by her roommate Rebecca - who devises questionnaires for women's magazines - that she will die in three months unless she finds happiness.

Maggie isn't exactly unhappy. She has a satisfying job working as a radiologist at a local breast cancer clinic, three different men are pursuing her, and she lives in a nice, expensive apartment with Rebecca, who kindly cooks for her.

Maggie also has a close relationship with her two turbulent sisters, Lucy and Janet, and she's on good terms with her left-of-center, slightly new agey parents. But is she really happy? It isn't until she takes one of Rebecca's questionnaires that she realizes she cannot truthfully answer: yes.

The Sad Truth About Happiness is all about Maggie's journey as she finds the meaning of true "happiness," and tries to "shuffle off this mortal coil." She takes up jogging, goes out with her three suitors - a divorcee, a lawyer, and an eloquent and wealthy plastic surgeon, she goes bush-walking with her best friend, and even seeks spiritual enlightenment by attending mass in a local church.

Maggie's life really takes a turn for the tumultuous when she gets involved in a kidnap plot. Her violently temperamental sister Lucy has just returned home to Vancouver from Rome. Pregnant to Gian Luigi, a wealthy Italian, Lucy loves Gian dearly, but just can't cope with the fact that he already has a wife and three children.

When the baby is finally born, Maggie finds herself helping her younger sister in a surprisingly impulsive and volatile way. Maggie admits she's the least spiritual person she knows; she has, "no religious or mystical impulses," however, the new Maggie is scarcely recognizable as the young woman who describes herself as "practical, sensible, reliable, a realist."

Maggie's philosophical quest to find happiness is somewhat sublimated to the baby snatching plot that makes up the last two thirds of the novel, and one wonders whether author Anne Giardini sells out her solid opening premise for a more action orientated plot, along with extended talks on the merits of breast feeding.

Still, in The Sad Truth About Happiness, Giardini has a firm grasp of her characters, particularly Maggie, with all her flaws, fears, and insecuties about her life and loves. She's a complex, multi-faceted character who is intent to use equal parts mind and heart to get at the answers.

Maggie's philosophical posterings are spot-on: she sees happiness as connected to love: "something to love, something to do, something to hope for, these are the essentials of happiness. For Maggie, happiness is more ephemeral than thought. It can be observed without changing its nature, its ingredients are subtle and there is no guarentee that a recipe for joy can by written out or passed on or repeated even once again.

This is a finely tuned novel, that captures the ordinary ebb and flow of life, with all the characters, including Maggie, forced to confront their pretensions, insecurities, and their motivations. Does happiness make all the difference? What is happiness, if it can have such an influence on the length of your life? Through her low-key and easy writing, Giardini attempts to get at these age-old questions, but like the notion of life itself, she doesn't provide us with any easy answers. Mike Leonard September 05.

2.0 out of 5 stars She writes really well.... but, November 5, 2009

By	BJ Knapp - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Just where in the heck was the plot?

I finished it today. I want to know if Maggie achieved happiness? Did she die when the magazine quiz predicted she would? What happened to that part of the story? It's almost like someone at the book binding company took two unrelated books and bound them together to see if anyone would notice.

There are too many little tangents that don't go anywhere in this book. The scenes are described beautifully, but most of them could have been stripped away and it wouldn't have made a difference.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars it started out strong, but..., August 19, 2005

By	A book lover - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Sad Truth About Happiness: A Novel (Hardcover)

this book started with an interesting question re happiness. "are you happy?" and then drifted into a strange kidnapping plot that did not go anywhere. in addition, there were too many characters who are introduced and then disappear (the three boyfriends, luana, even the parents). the author repeatedly *tells* the reader that sisters Lucy and Janet are heard to deal with but really doesn't *show* us examples of said personality characteristics. it just did not come together for me at all. i hope Ms. Giardini's next book is tighter because i really liked her writing style.