Happiness and Love

A Novel

By: Zoe Dubno

Narrated by: Zoe Dubno

One of Vogue’s Best Books of the Year

“Reading the novel is akin to spending time with a witty if merciless observer of other people’s idiocies. There’s something of a latter-day Holden Caulfield about the narrator…it possesses an enlivening, claustrophobic charge.” —The Spectator

Following a young woman over the course of one outrageous and insufferable downtown dinner party at the home of her estranged best friends—an artist and curator couple, whom she now realizes stands for everything she detests—Happiness and Love is a “deliciously scathing” (Vogue UK) debut novel about brazen materialism, self-obsession, and the empty careerism of so-called cultural elites.

From her perch on the corner of a white sofa, in the beautiful apartment of terrible people, our narrator watches the assembled group of artists, writers, and hangers-on and silently, mercilessly eviscerates them in a “nervy and blisteringly funny” (The Wall Street Journal) monologue.

“Told in a single long, savage and hilarious paragraph,” this is a novel that can be read “in one delicious go” (Financial Times): the story of an evening that slowly self-destructs, as the guests sip orange wine and await the arrival of a newly famous actress. When the guest of honor finally does arrive, she sets in motion a disastrous end to the evening, laying bare the depravity and decadence of the hosts’ empty little lives—a hollowness that the narrator herself knows all too well.

Characters make this read engaging

This is not a book I would pick up as I lean toward nonfiction but the reviews were filled with applause for the nature of the telling so I purchased. No regrets for the listen. The vivid depictions of the characters and their relations with others made identifying the ensemble easy.

Snide and snarky

As a critique of the art world, it is clichéd. . As a novel, it is shallow. The characters are one dimensional, and narrator is deeply unsympathetic.

Do you like to listen to the elite bear their ugly soul?

Then get this book. It’s a tirade of endless jealousy. And the reader is an amateur. If not for a book club I would have stopped listening after ten minutes. Do not waste your time and money.