Often I Am Happy

Starred review from February 27, 2017
In Danish novelist Grondahl’s stunning latest, a recently widowed 70-year-old woman reexamines her life and past decisions with sagacity and aplomb. The novel is written in the form of a letter from Ellinor to her long-deceased best friend, Anna, whose husband Ellinor married after Anna died. In it, Ellinor shares her feelings about their close-knit bond, the challenge of taking Anna’s place after her death as a mother to her twin boys, growing accustomed to being Georg’s new wife, and the decision to sell the house after he died. Some of Ellinor’s complaints are par for the course; the boys are miffed she got a new apartment so quickly after Georg’s death, for example. But a number of weightier matters are also addressed, including Ellinor’s botched abortion and Anna’s secret affair with Ellinor’s first husband, Henning, just before she died. Toward the second half of the book, parallel narratives seamlessly emerge that add depth and an extra layer of sorrow to Ellinor’s story, including the truth about her absentee father—the German soldier her mother fell in love with during World War II—and details about her ill-matched relationship with Henning. Despite the book’s gloomy subject matter, Ellinor comes off like a beacon of strength with a firm grasp on reality. Plus, Grondahl has full command over his prose—it’s more frank than maudlin. What results is a compassionate and often edifying commentary on the elasticity of love, the strength it takes to move forward after a death, and the power of forgiveness.

March 1, 2017
A simple, melancholic tale of love, loss, grief, and friendship.As for many artists before him--Shakespeare, Austen, Bergman--for veteran Danish author Grondahl (An Altered Light, 2005, etc.), everything seems to come down to love, marriage, and family. This short, wistful novel, Grondahl's first to be translated into English, takes on those classic subjects through the person of Ellinor, a 70-year-old Copenhagen woman. The book's title is from a poem by the Danish poet B.S. Ingemann: "Often I am happy and yet I want to cry." Ellinor's first words to us are: "Now your husband is also dead, Anna. Your husband, our husband." Ellinor's husband, Georg, died three weeks ago, and she feels the need to talk to someone. She picks Anna, Georg's late first wife and her own best friend, and talks to her via a dramatic monologue which is like a long letter: "His absence felt like a lump growing inside me, making me suffocate. I never felt so alone." She now has a companion who will listen, but "you have no ears to hear any of this." She knows it's "absurd" but she's lonely, grief-stricken, and it helps comfort her. The plot is very spare. Her first husband, Henning, died 40 years ago in a skiing accident which also killed Anna. Some secrets are revealed. We learn from Ellinor that Henning had been having an affair with Anna. Ellinor then became like a stepmother to Anna's twin sons, Stefan and Morten, and helped Georg raise them. Eventually, she and Georg married. We learn that Ellinor was an only child from an affair her mother had with a German soldier; she never knew her father. Ellinor is a meek, reserved woman living a simple life. She can get angry, bitter, and sarcastic, and this helps make her seem human as she gradually reveals herself to be a strong, courageous woman. Although the book is a tad sentimental, it possesses quiet grace.

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March 15, 2017
Ellinor tells her dead friend, Anna, that Anna's husband is now also dead. The twist and initial confusion in the story is that the husband, Georg, was also Ellinor's husband. In this newest Danish-to-English translation of Grndahl (An Altered Light, 2005), events that are first hinted at in shadow slowly unfurl, as in a mystery novel. Just how did Ellinor's first husband die, and what was he doing with Anna? After an accident killed Anna and Ellinor's husband, infertile Ellinor mothers Anna's children and slowly becomes part of the household. Now that Georg is dead and the children are grown, Ellinor's decision to return to the rough city neighborhood of her youth seems odd, but the reasons slowly unravel in the telling. Grndahl's slim novel unfolds in such a way that the reader can picture Ellinor sitting graveside, speaking quietly, while the reader is allowed to eavesdrop. Yet speaking doesn't always equal healing, as Ellinor tells her friend, Taking your place didn't mean that I understood you any better. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)