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My Happy Life  By  cover art

My Happy Life

By: Lydia Millet
Narrated by: Julia Whelan
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Publisher's summary

At the opening of My Happy Life, the unnamed narrator of this bittersweet fictional memoir has been abandoned in a locked room of a defunct hospital for the mentally ill. She hasn't seen the nice man who brings her food in days; she's eaten the soap and the toothpaste; she tried to eat the plaster on her walls, a dietary adventure that ended none too well. And yet, curiously, the narrator is happy. Despite a lifetime of neglect, physical abuse, and loss, she's incapable of perceiving slight or injury. She has infinite faith in the goodwill of others, loves even her enemies, and finds grace and communion in places most people wouldn't dare to look. By stepping outside her meager circumstances, she's able to live each moment as though it were her last - with gratitude, longing, and delight.

Lauded by both critics and listeners, My Happy Life consistently surprises and excites with its original vision of a unique woman whose rich interior life protects her from the horrors of external reality.

©2009 Lydia Millet (P)2021 Dreamscape Media, LLC

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I wanted to find the joy in this story

This story is SO disturbing, it made me ill. Seriously, sick to my stomach. The premise should be good, but the abuse this girl goes through, and I would not call her outlook positive, as she is obviously mentally disabled, is severe and sickening. I really could not finish, I tried, a few times, but had to give up. The performance was spot on, Julia Whelan is so good, but I could not stick with it. And, it is a short story... I wanted to skip to the end to see what happened with her left alone at the home, but I was afraid what the ending would be, based on what the story had been. I really have not felt this ill with a story in a long time.

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