The Illicit Happiness of Other People: A Darkly Comic Novel Set in Modern India - Softcover

Manu Joseph

4.08 out of 5 stars

6,777 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1848543107 ISBN 13: 9781848543102

Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd, 2013

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Ousep Chacko, journalist and failed novelist, prides himself on being “the last of the real men.” His wife, Mariamma, finds ways to feed her family despite their lack of money, but in her spare time she fantasizes about Ousep’s early death. One day, their seventeen-year-old son, Unni—a boy obsessed with comics—does something terrible and inexplicable. Ousep and Mariamma separately try to solve the mystery of Unni’s action but find no answers. Three years later, Ousep receives a package that sends him back to the search. He starts to hound his son’s friends and a famous neurosurgeon. Meanwhile, younger son Thoma—a twelve-year-old with below-sea-level self-esteem—falls desperately in love with their haughty, beautiful teenage neighbour, who has her own secrets. The Illicit Happiness of Other People—a smart, wry and poignant novel—is part mystery, part philosophy and part unlikely love story.

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About the Author

MANU JOSEPH is the editor of the Indian news magazine OPEN and a columnist with the International Herald Tribune. His first novel, Serious Men, won the PEN Open Book Award and The Hindu Best Fiction Award 2010. It was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize and the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, and was picked by The Independent, The Huffington Post, and the California

Review

“Starred review. Joseph writes with extraordinary wit, cunning and sympathy about both family relationships and ultimate mysteries.”
- Kirkus Reviews

“The novel is an admirable blend of plot and ideas, of a story that reads like a mystery but also of the kind of philosophical and social observations that are worth pausing for and underlining. ...Indeed, with Happiness, Joseph has made a convincing case for exploring the depths of joy the way so many of his predecessors have plunged into melancholy.”
- Jaime Netzer, Kirkus Reviews

“...Joseph’s prose is exquisitely phrased without an excess of sentimentality... the confident, immersing voice of Illicit Happiness promises readers this is not the last we’ve heard of Manu Joseph.”
- The Telegraph (UK)

“Wonderful... The Illicit Happiness of Other People...injects dark, rueful laughter into an immensely touching story of loss.”
- Wall Street Journal

“The Illicit Happiness of Other People is ambitious. It is the story of a family getting to know itself, of a socialist India that no longer exists and of a society obsessed with grades. It is a plot-driven yarn with themes of morality, sexuality, psychiatry and yet more science and philosophy.... But it does not feel overburdened.... Quite an achievement.”
- The Economist

“The Illicit Happiness of Other People is both a terribly funny and deeply sad story.... Beautifully written.... Manu Joseph perfectly captures his characters in his precise, sharp prose.”
- Ariel Balter, New York Journal of Books

“Ingeniously constructed.... [Joseph is] using his witty, incisive writing to explore the great philosophical questions of happiness and life.”
- Manil Suri, author of The City of Devi

“Joseph’s smart new novel is laced with black humor and keen observations on human nature... Joseph’s rich characters intersect in moments of tenderness.”
- Publishers Weekly

“Sublime.... Joseph’s witty narrative adds depth and vigor to the Chacko family’s tale and assuredly explores the complexity of self-perception amid present-day life.”
- Leah Strauss, Booklist

“Fusing ribald farce with poignant drama... Joseph deftly rotates narrative points of view... [and] embellishes each strand with vibrant dabs of local color... that help showcase India in all its sublime and absurd glory.... Wild, irreverent and blackly comic.”
- Malcolm Forbes, Star Tribune

“Joseph’s prose is exquisitely phrased without an excess of sentimentality.... The confident, immersing voice of Illicit Happiness promises readers this is not the last we’ve heard of Manu Joseph.”
- Telegraph (UK)