-
The Happy Man
- A Tale of Horror
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Classics
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Audible Premium Plus
$14.95 a month
Buy for $19.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Figures Unseen
- Selected Stories
- By: Steve Rasnic Tem
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the worlds of Steve Rasnic Tem, a father takes his son "fishing" in the deepest part of downtown, flayed rabbits visit a suburban back yard, a man is haunted by a surrealistic nightmare of crutches, a father is unable to rescue his son from a nightmare of trees, a bereaved man transforms memories of his wife into performance art, great moving cliffs of detritus randomly prowl the world, a seemingly pointless life finds final expression in bits of folded paper, a nuclear holocaust brings about a new mythology, an isolated man discovers he’s part of a terrifying community, and more.
-
-
Simply Outstanding!
- By Char on 04-27-18
By: Steve Rasnic Tem
-
Let's Go Play at the Adams'
- By: Mendal W Johnson
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"They're just kids.... It's only a game." That's what Barbara, a lovely 20-year-old babysitter told herself when she awoke bound and gagged. But the knots were tight and painful and the children would not let her go.
-
-
Shock Value Depravity
- By ATCTGAGTGCCTTTG on 04-17-20
By: Mendal W Johnson
-
Nightblood
- By: T. Chris Martindale
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ancient vampire has descended on Isherwood, Indiana, turning its townspeople into a legion of bloodthirsty monsters, and only one man can stop them. Chris Stiles, once a Vietnam War soldier, is now the ultimate vampire hunter. With the help of the ghost of his dead brother, who was killed by the monsters, and an arsenal of high-powered weaponry, Chris is ready for a new war - this time not with the Viet Cong, but against an army of the Undead!
-
-
Pulpy, Action-Packed Vampire Fun
- By Bjorn Smars on 03-29-20
-
The Devil's Own Work: Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Alan Judd
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 2 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Edward, a rising young author, pens a savage review of the new novel by the world-famous O.M. Tyrell, he is surprised to receive an invitation to visit the old man at his villa in the south of France. The night of their meeting, Tyrell dies, and soon after, Edward's career mysteriously starts to soar as he earns fame, fortune and critical acclaim. But despite his achievements, Edward seems haunted, even tormented.
-
-
Short but great
- By copelandcory on 02-24-20
By: Alan Judd
-
Nightmares and Geezenstacks
- By: Fredric Brown
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great pulp writers, Fredric Brown (1906-1972) combined a flair for the horrific, a quirky sense of humor, and a wild imagination, and published many classic novels in the mystery and science fiction genres. But he was also a master of the "short-short story", tales only a page or two in length, but hard-hitting and with a wicked twist at the end.
-
-
The stories are fun and quick
- By Midwestbonsai on 04-01-18
By: Fredric Brown
-
All Souls' Night
- By: Sir Hugh Walpole
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was one of the most popular and prolific English authors of his time, best known for his historical fiction and novels for boys. But it was in the field of the macabre and supernatural that Walpole was at his best, and this collection of 16 tales contains many of his finest.
-
-
a scary tale
- By Dragon Fire on 02-28-20
By: Sir Hugh Walpole
-
Figures Unseen
- Selected Stories
- By: Steve Rasnic Tem
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the worlds of Steve Rasnic Tem, a father takes his son "fishing" in the deepest part of downtown, flayed rabbits visit a suburban back yard, a man is haunted by a surrealistic nightmare of crutches, a father is unable to rescue his son from a nightmare of trees, a bereaved man transforms memories of his wife into performance art, great moving cliffs of detritus randomly prowl the world, a seemingly pointless life finds final expression in bits of folded paper, a nuclear holocaust brings about a new mythology, an isolated man discovers he’s part of a terrifying community, and more.
-
-
Simply Outstanding!
- By Char on 04-27-18
By: Steve Rasnic Tem
-
Let's Go Play at the Adams'
- By: Mendal W Johnson
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"They're just kids.... It's only a game." That's what Barbara, a lovely 20-year-old babysitter told herself when she awoke bound and gagged. But the knots were tight and painful and the children would not let her go.
-
-
Shock Value Depravity
- By ATCTGAGTGCCTTTG on 04-17-20
By: Mendal W Johnson
-
Nightblood
- By: T. Chris Martindale
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 13 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An ancient vampire has descended on Isherwood, Indiana, turning its townspeople into a legion of bloodthirsty monsters, and only one man can stop them. Chris Stiles, once a Vietnam War soldier, is now the ultimate vampire hunter. With the help of the ghost of his dead brother, who was killed by the monsters, and an arsenal of high-powered weaponry, Chris is ready for a new war - this time not with the Viet Cong, but against an army of the Undead!
-
-
Pulpy, Action-Packed Vampire Fun
- By Bjorn Smars on 03-29-20
-
The Devil's Own Work: Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Alan Judd
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 2 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After Edward, a rising young author, pens a savage review of the new novel by the world-famous O.M. Tyrell, he is surprised to receive an invitation to visit the old man at his villa in the south of France. The night of their meeting, Tyrell dies, and soon after, Edward's career mysteriously starts to soar as he earns fame, fortune and critical acclaim. But despite his achievements, Edward seems haunted, even tormented.
-
-
Short but great
- By copelandcory on 02-24-20
By: Alan Judd
-
Nightmares and Geezenstacks
- By: Fredric Brown
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the great pulp writers, Fredric Brown (1906-1972) combined a flair for the horrific, a quirky sense of humor, and a wild imagination, and published many classic novels in the mystery and science fiction genres. But he was also a master of the "short-short story", tales only a page or two in length, but hard-hitting and with a wicked twist at the end.
-
-
The stories are fun and quick
- By Midwestbonsai on 04-01-18
By: Fredric Brown
-
All Souls' Night
- By: Sir Hugh Walpole
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) was one of the most popular and prolific English authors of his time, best known for his historical fiction and novels for boys. But it was in the field of the macabre and supernatural that Walpole was at his best, and this collection of 16 tales contains many of his finest.
-
-
a scary tale
- By Dragon Fire on 02-28-20
By: Sir Hugh Walpole
-
The Late Breakfasters
- By: Robert Aickman
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the preeminent writers of weird fiction, Robert Aickman is celebrated for his unsettling and often ambiguous "strange stories", but he once wrote that "those, if any, who wish to know more about me, should plunge beneath the frivolous surface of The Late Breakfasters," his only novel, originally published in 1964.
-
-
A quirky little tale.
- By Barks Books on 03-27-18
By: Robert Aickman
-
The Nest
- By: Gregory A. Douglas
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was just an ordinary garbage dump on peaceful Cape Cod. No one ever imagined that conditions were perfect for breeding, that it was a warm womb, fetid, moist, and with food so plentiful that everything creeping, crawling, and slithering could gorge to satiation. Then a change in poison control was made, resulting in an unforeseen mutation. Now the giant mutant cockroaches are ready to leave their nest - in search of human flesh!
-
-
Buyer beware: it’s brutal
- By Liv on 07-17-19
-
The Auctioneer
- Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: Joan Samson
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the isolated farming community of Harlowe, New Hampshire, John Moore and his wife, Mim, work the land that has been in his family for generations. But from the moment the charismatic Perly Dinsmore arrives in town and starts soliciting donations for his auctions, things begin slowly and insidiously to change in Harlowe. As the auctioneer carries out his terrible, inscrutable plan, the Moores and their neighbors will find themselves gradually but inexorably stripped of their freedom, their possessions, and perhaps even their lives....
-
-
HELL YES OMG
- By Simone on 11-11-18
By: Joan Samson
-
Sweetheart, Sweetheart
- By: Bernard Taylor
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
David Warwick, an Englishman living in New York, has a sudden premonition that his twin brother, Colin, is in danger. He returns to England and learns the shocking truth: both Colin and his young bride Helen have died ghastly deaths - deaths that no one in the village wants to talk about.
-
-
Sweetheart, Sweetheart
- By Simone on 05-03-17
By: Bernard Taylor
-
The Other Place and Other Stories of the Same Sort
- By: J. B. Priestley
- Narrated by: David Sweeney-Bear
- Length: 6 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) was a versatile and prolific novelist and playwright, but in The Other Place (1953), he shows an unexpected talent, proving himself a master of the weird tale. In "The Grey Ones", Mr. Patson visits a psychiatrist after he becomes convinced that a race of demons masquerading as men are plotting the overthrow of the human race...but what if he's not insane? In "Guest of Honour", a banquet speech becomes a horrifying affair when the keynote speaker realizes his audience is made up of monstrous and menacing creatures.
-
-
An interesting midcentury collection of the Weird.
- By Fenrix on 03-15-20
By: J. B. Priestley
-
Nightshade and Damnations
- By: Gerald Kersh
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 6 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An expedition in South America uncovers a terrifying race of men without bones who literally suck the life out of their prey. A man in 20th-century London makes a horrifying discovery about a monster found off the coast of Brighton in 1745. A sea captain goes ashore on a deserted island and finds what seem to be the bones of a previously unknown species of monster, only to learn that the bones tell a much more tragic tale than he could ever have imagined.
-
-
Great Horror Anthology
- By IncreaseMather on 04-12-19
By: Gerald Kersh
-
The Travelling Grave and Other Stories
- Valancourt 20th Century Classics
- By: L. P. Hartley
- Narrated by: Guy Bethell
- Length: 9 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Though best known for his classic novel of Edwardian childhood The Go-Between, L. P. Hartley was also a master of supernatural and macabre fiction, the best of which is collected in The Travelling Grave and Other Stories. This volume demonstrates Hartley's versatility, ranging from traditional ghost stories like "Feet Foremost" and "The Cotillon" to the wonderfully black humor of the horror masterpieces "The Travelling Grave" and "The Killing Bottle". Originally published in 1948 and long out of print, this collection features 12 of Hartley's best tales.
-
-
Evoking the Unspeakable
- By waha on 04-29-18
By: L. P. Hartley
-
The Cormorant
- By: Stephen Gregory
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 5 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A young family receives a welcome surprise when old Uncle Ian dies and leaves them a cottage in north Wales. For Ian's nephew and his wife, Ann, it seems a stroke of incredible good fortune, enabling them to leave their unfulfilling lives in the city for a newfound freedom in the remote seaside cottage. There's just one catch. Uncle Ian's will has a strange condition: The couple must care for his pet cormorant or forfeit the bequest.
-
-
Cormorants are horrible pets...duh.
- By Bill on 12-21-19
By: Stephen Gregory
-
The Delicate Dependency
- By: Michael Talbot
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 15 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Dr. John Gladstone, a scientist in Victorian London, is thrust into the world of the vampire after his carriage runs over a young man of angelic beauty named Niccolo. When Niccolo kidnaps Gladstone's child and vanishes, the doctor must go in pursuit, with the help of his daughter, Ursula, who is enticed by the lure of eternal life, and Lady Hespeth, whose demure exterior hides a dangerous obsession. Why are the vampires taking children, and what is the connection to Gladstone's experiments with a deadly virus?
-
-
Another Clever Tale from Michael Talbot
- By Rick Charles on 10-15-18
By: Michael Talbot
-
Night Things
- By: Michael Talbot
- Narrated by: Eric Bryan Moore
- Length: 8 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Built by a madwoman during the Victorian era, Lake House is a 160-room mansion in the Adirondacks with stairways that lead nowhere, bizarre rooms designed to distort the senses, endless series of mazelike halls - and a century-long history of violent deaths. Lauren Montgomery, her son Garrett, and her new rock star husband Stephen Ransom have just arrived at Lake House, anticipating a long and relaxing summer. But what they don't know is that their rental home is actually a labyrinthine puzzle at whose center lurks something unspeakably evil....
-
-
thought it would be more scary.
- By TinkerMel on 09-10-17
By: Michael Talbot
-
Eltonsbrody
- By: Edgar Mittelholzer
- Narrated by: David Sweeney-Bear
- Length: 5 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Woodsley, a young English painter, arrives in Barbados and finds no lodging available, he thinks himself fortunate to be invited to stay at Eltonsbrody, a mansion belonging to the eccentric widow Mrs Scaife. But behind the locked doors of the house’s disused rooms lurk terrible secrets, and soon strange and blood-curdling events begin to unfold. The tension builds towards a shocking and unforgettable conclusion, when the full horror of Eltonsbrody will be revealed.
-
-
Classic Gothic novel
- By Troy J. Knutson on 09-17-20
-
The Well
- By: Jack Cady
- Narrated by: Matt Godfrey
- Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Years earlier, John Tracker fled the insanity of his family and their house, a centuries-old monstrosity that his grandfather Theophilus rigged full of hallucinatory tricks and vicious death traps designed to capture the Devil. Now middle-aged, John receives word that the place is to be demolished to make way for a freeway, and he decides to revisit it with his girlfriend Amy Griffith before its destruction. But when a blizzard traps them inside the house, they will be forced to contend with the dangers hidden within: strange time-shifts, murderous traps, and more.
-
-
Winchester House meets H.H. Holmes Mansion
- By Spooky Mike on 04-27-18
By: Jack Cady
Publisher's Summary
Charles Ripley has a good job as an engineer, a pretty wife, and an expensive house in a fashionable San Diego suburb. But it isn't until Ruskin Marsh moves in next door that Ripley realizes how passionless his life really is. Marsh, a connoisseur of the arts, high-powered lawyer, model husband and father, and effortless seducer of women, is so supremely alive that Ripley finds himself irresistibly drawn to him.
But after Marsh's arrival, local girls begin to vanish, marriages end violently, nights are split with endless, desperate screams, and horribly mutilated corpses are found. Soon, Ripley becomes caught up in an accelerating maelstrom of sex, drugs, violence, and ghastly, unimaginable rites...and begins to see the beauty of life.
From its profoundly unsettling first pages, Eric C. Higgs's The Happy Man (1985) reveals the nightmare underside of the American dream and brilliantly echoes the Gothic horror tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and Roald Dahl.
"The Happy Man is an essential '80s horror read: smart, sharp, unforgiving, unlike anything else in the genre." - Too Much Horror Fiction
"[A] grisly shocker, understated for the most part but carrying the impact of a fist to the stomach...a most promising debut." - San Diego Union
"A thoroughly engrossing Gothic horror story." - South Bend Tribune
More from the same
What listeners say about The Happy Man
Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Midwestbonsai
- 04-15-18
a neighborhood friend telling you a crazy story
In the opening moments of Eric C. Higgs's The Happy Man: A Tale of Horror, we learn of a murder - the Marsh family has been shot dead next door. We're told this by Charles Ripley, whose first-person account gives us insight into the San Diego neighborhood he inhabits. The victims next door are not the only murders this neighborhood has seen recently, and Ripley recounts the events leading up to this penultimate act of violence. In fact, strange things have been brewing ever since the Marshes moved in...
Outside of his marriage, Ripley doesn't have a lot of friends and few men he can connect with. He quickly bonds with the newly arrived Ruskin Marsh, and their wives form a fast friendship. As Ripley and Marsh become better acquainted with each other, Charles is introduced to a very rare work of writing from the sexual libertine Marquis de Sade. Entranced by Marsh's own sexual exploits and lack of inhibitions, Ripley soon finds his own constraints diminishing and begins straying into extramarital affairs and, soon enough, darker exploits encouraged in de Sade's writings.
Narrated by Matt Godfrey, The Happy Man is a slow-burn work of suburban horror that finely balances placidity with hair-raising, horrifying drama. This is a well-crafted work of psychosexual drama, and Godfrey's reading of the material captures the feel of a neighborhood friend telling you a crazy story. At only a bit over 5 hours long, Godfrey keeps the narrative moving along nicely. Higgs, meanwhile, keeps the work grounded, and the moments of horror are never implausible or outlandish. Higgs earns each of his twists and turns by giving us believable characters and a pot-boiler narrative that slowly builds toward the inevitable.
Written in 1985, and recently reissued by Valancourt Books, The Happy Man taps into the anxiety of The Other with its themes of sexual promiscuity, casual drug use, fear of immigrants, and the rise of the Christian Right and their idea of what constitutes family values. While this latter is never overtly mentioned, given the period Higgs was writing in I can't help but feel like much of this book is a response to the political climate surrounding it. Marsh is very much a hedonistic figure, the kind of guy Nancy Reagan would encourage you to Just Say No! to, and his arrival to this suburban neighborhood threatens to destroy everything his fellow yuppies hold dear, upsetting the balance of their perfectly coiffed all-American lifestyles. With its themes of racism and the sexual objectification of women, The Happy Man is very much a product of the 1980s, yet much of horrors its reacting to, and certainly expounding upon, still feel topical today. Higgs takes all the fears of 80s Evangelicalism and runs with them toward their worst-case finale - the destruction of families at the hands of an outsider. It's telling, though, that while Mexican immigrants are often blamed for some of the seedier aspects of this white collar, upper-crust San Diego subdivision, the root cause of their problems lie much, much closer to home. Perhaps, in between the moments of eroticism and shocking violence, Higgs was trying to tell us something after all.
Audiobook was provided for review by the narrator.
Please find this complete review and many others at my review blog.
[If this review helped, please press YES. Thanks!]
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Simone
- 03-24-18
Moderately Good
I wanted to like this book so badly. From the description to the narrator to the cover, it sounded right up my alley. I had the hardest time getting into this one. It seemed to get interesting in bursts to me but never really grabbed me. Perhaps it just wasn't for me! Matt Godfrey literally always does fantastic work, so it may be worth the listen just for him. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone only because it didn't strike a chord with me.
I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amanda
- 05-05-18
Not sue what that was
First off the narration was excellent but the story was disturbingly not what I was expecting. It was as deluded dark psychological tale of one mans trip into disturbing sexual fantasy led by a sadistic friend. A very weird tale of internal monologue. Again the narrator was fabulous though. I received a free review copy of this book at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- James
- 05-01-18
Happy - not happy
Very strange and twisted neighbors destroy the nice couple next door and the neighborhood. The plot started out really strong, but fizzled just toward the end, however, this was a really good listen.
“I was voluntarily provided this free review copy audiobook by the author, narrator, or publisher.”
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- neal
- 04-21-18
The Happy Man: A Tale of Terror - review N Smead
First things first.. [I have been given a free copy of this audio book in return for an unbiased review finished in a set time. I am in no way affiliated with the author/narrator/publisher] Now that we are done with the legalese... I requested this book solely on the fact that, the book's cover consists of nothing but a fork speared eyeball. Really, what more do you need to know? So you can imagine my surprise when I hear the melodic tones of Matt Godfrey speaking through my headset. This book (like his others so far) does not disappoint in keeping the listener entertained both in the creative writing of Eric C. Higgs as well as through the narration of Matt Godfrey. From the very beginning, you are brought into the macabre world of Ruskin Marsh via Charles Ripley. Ripley is an average mild mannered suburbanite. Good job, good home, good neighbor, good marriage. Then comes Ruskin Marsh. Akin to other anti-heros such as Dexter (Dexter) and Patrick Bateman(American psycho). Marsh invades the normalcy and every day life of Charles Ripley very slowly, and deliberately. Right away you find that the aesthetics of the Marsh marriage are just that; for appearances only. By the fourth chapter the true dark nature laying within Marsh is revealed. However, it is written in such a way that instead of casting shadows on these acts, Higgs gives us his amazing insight in his interpretation of: ambivalence, raw passion, disgust, and pure bliss all at once; Godfrey does his damndest to make all of these feelings come to life during his narration. The Marquis de Sade even makes an appearance in the form of a rare leather bound tome offered to Ripley from Marsh as a form of "bait" to start luring this naive engineer down a dark rabbit hole. Cudoes to Mr. Higgs for that particular name drop. All in all I will give this a 3/5 I enjoyed the story, but it just seems like this kind of story is everywhere right now, and it is just lost in the middle of the pack somewhere. Matt Godfrey does a rather good job in keeping the listener entertained, and as always brings a solid performance. I would recommend this to anyone who loves: gore, brutality, introspection of a psychotic psychi, dark horror/mental manipulation themes. It is worth the credit to listen, but for me there isn't much replay value.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JenniferLOVESThrillers
- 04-15-18
A NICE HAPPY TALE OF HORROR
This story has a great narrator, which really made the story enjoyable. It's an interesting tale and not at all what I expected. It had a couple of twists that really surprised me and that does not happen often for me. The book is relatively short yet I felt satisfied. I recommend this novel to anyone that enjoys horror, and a good story with great narration.
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- TU
- 04-13-18
Great but not for the prudish
I was given this free review copy audio book at my request and have voluntarily
left this review.
I'm not sure how to quantify my feelings on this book. I love the 80's setting, as I'm a child of the 80's. I also love the old pre-2000's horror movies. That being said, this has a definite sexual overtones and content, which kind of surprised me. Mostly because I didn't expect the amount of sexual depravity in the book. It's just not my cup of tea. That being said, the book has a great building of tension as the book progresses. The narrator does a great job on the book.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Hicks
- 04-11-18
1980s Horror That Still Resonates Today
In the opening moments of Eric C. Higgs’s The Happy Man: A Tale of Horror, we learn of a murder – the Marsh family has been shot dead next door. We’re told this by Charles Ripley, whose first-person account gives us insight into the San Diego neighborhood he inhabits. The victims next door are not the only murders this neighborhood has seen recently, and Ripley recounts the events leading up to this penultimate act of violence. In fact, strange things have been brewing ever since the Marshes moved in…
Outside of his marriage, Ripley doesn’t have a lot of friends and few men he can connect with. He quickly bonds with the newly arrived Ruskin Marsh, and their wives form a fast friendship. As Ripley and Marsh become better acquainted with each other, Charles is introduced to a very rare work of writing from the sexual libertine Marquis de Sade. Entranced by Marsh’s own sexual exploits and lack of inhibitions, Ripley soon finds his own constraints diminishing and begins straying into extramarital affairs and, soon enough, darker exploits encouraged in de Sade’s writings.
Narrated by Matt Godfrey, The Happy Man is a slow-burn work of suburban horror that finely balances placidity with hair-raising, horrifying drama. This is a well-crafted work of psychosexual drama, and Godfrey’s reading of the material captures the feel of a neighborhood friend telling you a crazy story. At only a bit over 5 hours long, Godfrey keeps the narrative moving along nicely. Higgs, meanwhile, keeps the work grounded, and the moments of horror are never implausible or outlandish. Higgs earns each of his twists and turns by giving us believable characters and a pot-boiler narrative that slowly builds toward the inevitable.
Written in 1985, and recently reissued by Valancourt Books, The Happy Man taps into the anxiety of The Other with its themes of sexual promiscuity, casual drug use, fear of immigrants, and the rise of the Christian Right and their idea of what constitutes family values. While this latter is never overtly mentioned, given the period Higgs was writing in I can’t help but feel like much of this book is a response to the political climate surrounding it. Marsh is very much a hedonistic figure, the kind of guy Nancy Reagan would encourage you to Just Say No! to, and his arrival to this suburban neighborhood threatens to destroy everything his fellow yuppies hold dear, upsetting the balance of their perfectly coiffed all-American lifestyles. With its themes of racism and the sexual objectification of women, The Happy Man is very much a product of the 1980s, yet much of horrors its reacting to, and certainly expounding upon, still feel topical today. Higgs takes all the fears of 80s Evangelicalism and runs with them toward their worst-case finale – the destruction of families at the hands of an outsider. It’s telling, though, that while Mexican immigrants are often blamed for some of the seedier aspects of this white collar, upper-crust San Diego subdivision, the root cause of their problems lie much, much closer to home. Perhaps, in between the moments of eroticism and shocking violence, Higgs was trying to tell us something after all.
[Note: the review was originally published at audiobookreviewer dot com]
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jason Begly
- 03-25-18
The Happy Man
For most of this book I expected a very specific outcome. I was totally sold in my mind how everything would play out. I love that I was wrong about the journey to the conclusion and I am very happy to have been wrong about the outcome. This was a really fun journey into madness. I cannot go into details because it would give the little nuances of the book away and that is no fun for anyone. I will say that the confession of the wife should NOT have been a surprise, and yet it was. I was so enthralled in "knowing" what was going to happen I missed my cues. To me, that is a really good thing. As always, Matt Godfrey killed it with his narrative. He has quickly become one of my favorite raconteurs... yeah, that sounds correct. If I used that wrong then I claim creative freedom.
This book was given to me for free at my request for my voluntary and unbiased review.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jamie
- 03-21-18
Well written little horror story...
If you could sum up The Happy Man in three words, what would they be?
Interesting. Thoughtful. Shocking.
What did you like best about this story?
The detail that the main characters were fleshed out.
Which scene was your favorite?
The last. Wrapped it all up nicely.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No, but it kept me interested which is often no small feat.
Any additional comments?
I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Francis
- 01-19-20
Ennui and intensity in Suburbia
A decent short novel about ennui, the death of the soul in modern, mechanised society and suburbia, and the pursuit of intense experience which seems further away than it once was; about mid-life crisis of sorts, and finally a tale of redemption and regaining one's decency, perhaps. Not Virginia Woolf or Nabokov, but an engaging read with some thoughtful themes running along in the background.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story

- Jasper Bark
- 10-14-20
Dark Satire That's Lost None of its Bite
This novel is one of only two ascribed to Eric C. Higgs and the world is a lesser place for not having more of his fiction in it. This is a dark and insightful satire of the material, upper-middle-class lifestyle that was so celebrated, in the west, in the nineteen eighties. Engineer Charles Ripley has a pretty wife, a good job, a great home and a huge hole at the centre of his life. A hole that he hopes to fill through his friendship with the new neighbour, Ruskin Marsh. But Marsh has dark secrets and even darker appetites. The fact that the book is over forty years old, is of no significance, it has only become more relevant in the intervening years. It is literate, well observed and excoriating in its dissection of the emptiness of modern life and the extremes to which we'll go to fill it with some meaning. Credit should also go to Matt Godfrey's carefully judged performance, which brings Ripley's laconic voice to life and fleshes out every other character he portrays.