This Is Happiness by Niall Williams

“[This] enchanting novel recalls rural Ireland on the cusp of change . . . A delightful affirmation of life and love.” ―Sunday Independent

Synopsis -

A profound and enchanting novel set in the rural Irish village of Faha...about the loves of our lives and the joys of reminiscing.

The rain is stopping. Nobody in the small, forgotten village of Faha remembers when it started; rain on the western seaboard was a condition of living. Now--just as Father Coffey proclaims the coming of electricity--it is stopping. Seventeen-year-old Noel Crowe is standing outside his grandparents' house shortly after the rain has stopped when he encounters Christy for the first time. Though he can't explain it, Noel knows right then: something has changed.

This is the story of all that was to follow: Christy's long-lost love and why he had come to Faha, Noel's own experiences falling in and out of love, and the endlessly postponed arrival of electricity--a development that, once complete, would leave behind a world that had not changed for centuries.

Luminous and otherworldly, and yet anchored with deep-running roots into the earthy and the everyday, This Is Happiness is about stories as the very stuff of life: the ways they make the texture and matter of our world, and the ways they write and rewrite us.

Review - 

One day I discovered my reading was getting limited - mostly cozy murder mysteries and memoirs.  I moved to push myself wider in my fiction titles and have found some great authors/books. This is one.  Set in Ireland in the past, the story is told as the memories being shared a very old Noel Crowe of a year in his life when he was just seventeen.   It is a cozy look back at life in a small Irish village where everyone was firmly entrenched in the way things have always been done, and what happened as the outside world descends to change their way of life.  Electricity was coming to their town.  

I love the beauty of the author's writing and how he drew me in. It all came alive for me as I read - the imagery of the village and farmland, the characters met, the smells and sounds, and the feel and pace of life there. Readers have the privilege of seeing through Noel's eyes and understanding through his thoughts the world he lives in. The arrival of Christy, who ends up boarding in Noel's grandparents house and sharing a room with him, is the spark that ignites this coming of age story. 

Loss, regrets, first love, relationships, passions and more are all rolled out here at just the right pace as we follow how everyone in the village tries to adapt to a changing world.  A great read. 

Buy the Book: Amazon US ~ Amazon CAN

Meet the Author - 

Niall Williams studied English and French Literature at University College Dublin and graduated with a MA in Modern American Literature. He moved to New York in 1980 where he married Christine Breen. His first job in New York was opening boxes of books in Fox and Sutherland's Bookshop in Mount Kisco. He later worked as a copywriter for Avon Books in New York City before leaving America with Chris in 1985 to attempt to make a life as a writer in Ireland. They moved on April 1st to the cottage in west Clare that Chris's grandfather had left eighty years before to find his life in America.

Niall Williams has written over 10 novels, including Four Letters of Love (1997), History of the Rain (2014), and This Is Happiness (2019). With his wife Christine Breen, he has co-authored at least five non-fiction books. Williams has also written several screenplays for film and television, some of which are adaptations of his novels. Additionally, he has authored at least three stage plays.

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