This Is Happiness

De: Niall Williams

Narrado por: Dermot Crowley

Change is coming to Faha, a small Irish parish unaltered in a 1,000 years.

For one thing, the rain is stopping. Nobody remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard is a condition of living. But now - just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of the electricity - the rain clouds are lifting.

Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is idling in the unexpected sunshine when Christy makes his first entrance into Faha, bringing secrets he needs to atone for. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.

As the people of Faha anticipate the endlessly procrastinated advent of the electricity, and Noel navigates his own coming-of-age and his fallings in and out of love, Christy's past gradually comes to light, casting a new glow on a small world.

Harking back to a simpler time, This Is Happiness is a tender portrait of a community - its idiosyncrasies and traditions, its paradoxes and kindnesses, its failures and triumphs - and a coming-of-age tale like no other.

Luminous and lyrical, yet anchored by roots running deep into the earthy and everyday, it is about the power of stories: their invisible currents that run through all we do, writing and rewriting us, and the transforming light that they throw onto our world.

©2019 Niall Williams (P)2019 W. F. Howes Ltd

The Language of Happiness

This coming of age story is almost lost in the sensory delight of the words and the acting. The balance is struck after Mr Williams’s hero Noel, or has he is called No, takes us along through the agonies and mortifications of the first love, impulsive missteps, and painful consequences of a naive young man. It is equal parts painful and amusing.

Beautifully written with engaging characters

Just the charming novel I needed to bring a smile to my face in these difficult times. And I don't mean a sentimental, predictable, feel good novel. An elderly Irishman tells the story of his boyhood and coming of age in the hinterlands, in my world the "sticks", of Ireland in maybe the fifties, early sixties. The only drawback to listening is the inability to page back to see if, maybe, a date is mentioned and I missed it. Who cares. That is a small inconvenience to trade for the grand and glorious way the narrator, Dermot Crowley, brought this story to life. Beautifully written with engaging characters, a satisfying pleasure in every way.

Best book I've read in years.

This author's skill for storytelling exceeds anything words can describe. The characters in this book are so real and so complete, I struggle to belive they weren't real. Even the Narrator has a breadth and depth of personality that makes finishing the book feel like a sad good-bye.

Highly recommend!

Ohhh, how I loved this audiobook! The narrator is delightful, the characters larger than life, and the writing beautiful. The paper book alone is probably also wonderful, but the narration takes it to a new level. Laughed out loud most of the time, and teared up a weeee bit at points.

Happiness

What a beautiful reminder of what is true happiness.
I loved it and will encourage all my people to read it .