Translated by Tiffany Tsao
Format: Paperback, English
page(s)
ISBN/ISBN13: /978-1-911284-63-5
Published Dec 01, 2021 by Tilted Axis Press
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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.
Other/Related Editions
The Near and the Far – Volume 2
English / 2020
Happy Stories, Mostly
English / 2022
Happy Stories, Mostly
English / 2023
As seen as
— Bryony Lau in Norman Erikson Pasaribu’s Portrait of Gay Indonesia (Nation, Dec 28, 2023)
— Kristine Harper in Here are (Five of) the Books that Made My Heart Sing in 2022 (Personal Blog, Feb 08, 2023)
— Sita in Happy Stories, Mostly Kinda Review (Personal Blog, Dec 25, 2022)
— Rosie Milne in “Happy Stories, Mostly” by Norman Erikson Pasaribu (Asian Review of Books, Apr 29, 2022)
— Alexander Wells in Happy Stories, Mostly: A beguiling new collection from Norman Erikson Pasaribu (EXBERLINER Magazine, Feb 17, 2022)
— Lia Yuliana in So, in a world where we celebrate disneyfied heterosexualities, for queer folks, what is happiness? (Personal Blog, Jan 09, 2022)
— Carla Scarano D’Antonio in Happy Stories, Mostly (Litro Magazine, Jan 07, 2022)
