Happy Stories, Mostly

Book — Collection of Short Stories

Playful, shape-shifting and emotionally charged, Happy Stories, Mostly is a collection of twelve stories that queer the norm. Inspired by Simone Weil’s concept of ‘decreation’, and often drawing on Batak and Christian cultural elements, these tales put queer characters in situations and plots conventionally filled by hetero characters.

The stories talk to each other, echo phrases and themes, and even shards of stories within other stories, passing between airports, stacks of men’s lifestyle magazines and memories of Toy Story 3, such that each one almost feels like a puzzle piece of a larger whole, but with crucial facts – the saddest ones, the happiest ones – omitted, forgotten, unbearable.

A blend of science fiction, absurdism and alternative-historical realism, Happy Stories, Mostly is a powerful puff of fresh air, aimed at destabilising the heteronormative world and exposing its underlying absences.

Author Norman Erikson Pasaribu
Translator Tiffany Tsao

Format Paperback, English
Page(s)
ISBN/ISBN13 /978-1-911284-63-5
Published Date Dec 01, 2021
Publisher Tilted Axis Press

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Other/Related Editions

The Near and the Far – Volume 2
English / 2020

Cerita-cerita Bahagia, Hampir Seluruhnya
2020

Happy Stories, Mostly
English / 2022

Cerita-cerita Bahagia, Hampir Seluruhnya
2022

Happy Stories, Mostly
English / 2023

Nie do końca szczęśliwe historie
Polish / 2024

As seen as

Even when the stories are sad, as they often are, Pasaribu refuses to give readers a front-row seat to gay suffering.
— in Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Portrait of Gay Indonesia (Dec 28, 2023)

I am going to have to re-read these short stories soon. Very soon!
— in Here are (Five of) the Books that Made My Heart Sing in 2022 (Feb 08, 2023)

Everyone is equal and deserves nothing but what suits them the best.
— in Happy Stories, Mostly Kinda Review (Dec 25, 2022)

For its playfulness, its ambition, and the way it builds its sorrow-bricks into stories that confront head-on challenging situations and emotions, this is a collection that deserves to be read and re-read.
— in “Happy Stories, Mostly” by Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Apr 29, 2022)

Not all young poets succeed in the switch to fiction, but Pasaribu’s short story collection Happy Stories, Mostly is even more beguiling.
— in Happy Stories, Mostly: A beguiling new collection from Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Feb 17, 2022)

An interconnected web of beautiful stories with lyrical prose that strikes it’s own beat in narrative and sings it’s own tune of queer resilience.
— in So, in a world where we celebrate disneyfied heterosexualities, for queer folks, what is happiness? (Jan 09, 2022)

All places, however, offer only temporary shelter, and all relationships are unreliable, doomed to change or expire. Possible endings are therefore open to further developments that can be better or worse than what we are currently experiencing. This being in flux seems to be a characteristic of humanity that opposes fixed social roles. The stories in the collection trace this journey deftly and with expertise.
— in Happy Stories, Mostly (Jan 07, 2022)