Happiness

By: Ann Harleman

Narrated by: Stephanie Carrie

Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

In Ann Harleman's remarkable debut collection, men and women of extraordinary passions look for and sometimes find the hidden heart of ordinary life. Testing themselves and each other, they search for ways to connect. "Understanding", says the troubled voyeur-narrator of "Imaginary Colors" is "the booby prize" these characters go for experience. Reckless explorers of inner space, they try the limits of their lives.

Harleman combines a clear eye with a generous heart, revealing her characters - misguided, selfish, loving, brave - through a compassionate, often humorous probing of their inner and outer worlds.

The supple language of these twelve stories - wise, funny, delighting in the sensuous - makes us feel the beauty and terror of a fully lived life. Harleman's characters, whether they succeed or fail, show us the way to a deeper exploration of our own lives.

The book is published by University of Iowa Press.

John Simmons Short Fiction Award

©1994 Ann Harleman (P)2013 Redwood Audiobooks

Critic reviews

"It is easy to understand why Ann Harleman has won a University of Iowa short fiction award for this first collection of stories. She is a writer of astonishing clarity and depth, a conjurer of searing images and emotional truths that stay with her readers long after they have closed the covers on Happiness...passion, jealousy, loss, happiness (it's all here, beautifully so, with poetry on every page)." ( Boston Globe)

"Harleman's precise and evocative language can depict complex human relationships in a simple scene of chopping wood (or subtly illuminate the peril of romance in a claustrophobic family drama)." ( New York Times book review)