Norman Pasaribu

Happy Stories, Mostly

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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.
This book is currently unavailable
152 printed pages
Copyright owner
Bookwire
Original publication
2021
Publication year
2021
Translator
Tiffany Tsao
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Impressions

  • Agustina Chavezshared an impression15 days ago
    👍Worth reading
    🔮Hidden Depths

Quotes

  • Agustina Chavezhas quoted15 days ago
    She decides to read for a bit and flips through a women’s magazine lying on the table. Not two seconds later, her jaw drops. All the pages are blank. What’s the meaning of this, she thinks. How uneven! How incomplete! What’s the point of being a creator at all if you can’t even supply what your creations need?
  • Agustina Chavezhas quoted15 days ago
    Whoever is writing this story of mine, she thinks, is obviously an amateur and doesn’t care enough about detail.
  • Agustina Chavezhas quoted15 days ago
    Fly away, flies, Tula says silently. It’s out there, waiting for each of you—the best garbage in the whole wide world.
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