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The Happiest People in the World
The absurdity and distortion of reality that made Brock Clarke's previous two novels so outrageously funny and yet so moving are on full display in his newest offering, The Happiest People in the World. Adapting the format of the political thriller and subverting it to tell his story of innocence corrupted, Clarke has delivered a biting and controversial satire on the American obsession with security and the conspiracies that threaten it. The Happiest People in the World is a spy novel like no other spy novel. It's also a send-up of American culture, and in particular the constant pursuit of individual happiness of the kind that is attainable only at the expense of others. In exploring the contradictions and pitfalls of our national obsession with both "freedom" and "security," the novel shows us how we constantly subvert our own good intentions--as husbands and wives, as children and parents, as students and teachers, as believers in art and believers in God, as citizens of America and citizens of the world.
352 pages, Hardcover
First published November 4, 2014
47 people are currently reading
1157 people want to read
About the author
Brock Clarke
20 books124 followersBrock Clarke is the author of seven books of fiction, most recently a collection of short stories, The Price of the Haircut. His novels include The Happiest People in the World, Exley (which was a Kirkus Book of the Year, a finalist for the Maine Book Award, and a longlist finalist for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award), and An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England (which was a national bestseller, and American Library Associate Notable Book of the Year, a #1 Book Sense Pick, a Borders Original Voices in Fiction selection, and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice pick). His books have been reprinted in a dozen international editions, and have been awarded the Mary McCarthy Prize for Fiction, the Prairie Schooner Book Series Prize, a National Endowment for Arts Fellowship, and an Ohio Council for the Arts Fellowship, among others.
Clarke’s individual stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, The Believer, Georgia Review, New England Review, Southern Review, and have appeared in the annual Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South anthologies, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.
Clarke lives in Portland, Maine and teaches creative writing at Bowdoin College and in The University of Tampa’s low residency MFA program.
Clarke’s individual stories and essays have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Boston Globe, Virginia Quarterly Review, One Story, The Believer, Georgia Review, New England Review, Southern Review, and have appeared in the annual Pushcart Prize and New Stories from the South anthologies, and on NPR’s Selected Shorts.
Clarke lives in Portland, Maine and teaches creative writing at Bowdoin College and in The University of Tampa’s low residency MFA program.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 192 reviews
January 27, 2015
2.5 bumped to 3: The press on this book is: “This madcap adventure mixes small town teachers, barkeeps, teenagers, and fry-cooks with international spies, terrorists, and political refugees.” That pretty much sums up the book. Seriously. That sentence alone.
My opinion is that it’s a goofy read at best. Clarke has some witty moments in his story. It’s over-the-top silly (i.e. madcap). It is entertaining, if you have the time. If your reading time were precious, this wouldn’t be one of the books I’d recommend. What I found interesting is that he published it in November 2014. It’s about a cartoonist who depicts Muhammad in a less than flattering way. As a result, the cartoonist is taken by the government and goes to a witness protection agency. I read this in 2015, after the offices of the French weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, were attacked, leaving 12 dead as a result of publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. I find timely writing of novels to be interesting. I don’t know if I would have read/finished this novel if not for current affairs.
My opinion is that it’s a goofy read at best. Clarke has some witty moments in his story. It’s over-the-top silly (i.e. madcap). It is entertaining, if you have the time. If your reading time were precious, this wouldn’t be one of the books I’d recommend. What I found interesting is that he published it in November 2014. It’s about a cartoonist who depicts Muhammad in a less than flattering way. As a result, the cartoonist is taken by the government and goes to a witness protection agency. I read this in 2015, after the offices of the French weekly newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, were attacked, leaving 12 dead as a result of publishing cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. I find timely writing of novels to be interesting. I don’t know if I would have read/finished this novel if not for current affairs.
February 22, 2015
2.5 stars
What was turning out to be a mildly disappointing comedy (channeling, perhaps, the likes of Christopher Buckley and other satirists with a geo-political bent) became hugely disappointing once I realized, about 75% of the way through, that Brock Clarke (a pseudonymous porn-star-sounding name if there ever was one) was the author of Exley, one of my favorite books I read in 2012. The Happiest People in the World, though often quite funny, is hampered by a convoluted plot, and by no fault of Mr. Clarke's, terrible timing.
It's only been a few weeks since the tragic events stemming from the most recent terrorist attack of the Paris-based offices of left-wing cartoon magazine Charlie Hebdo, so when it's revealed that the main character of THPITW, Jens Baedrup, a schlubby cartoonist for a a second rate newspaper in Denmark (home of those Happiest People in the World), is tasked with creating a cartoon to commemorate the anniversary of the Jyllands-Posten cartoon depicting Mohammed in a satiric fashion (and spurring a huge uproar with Muslims world-wide), it's impossible not to wonder how Mr. Clarke is planning to wring comedy out of tragedy.
To his credit, the book is somewhat funny, particularly after protag Jens, when a pair of wannabe-Muslim youths torch his house and newspaper office, has his death faked by the CIA and is eventually relocated to Broomeville, a somewhat backwards, surely Muslim-free town in upstate New York. There, Jens becomes Henrik (or Henry), a Swede who lands a job as a guidance counselor at the high school (and somehow, finds his life becoming even more complicated than hiding from Muslim assassins in Denmark).
The ambitious storyline threatens to implode several times, but there's just enough humor to keep things bouncing along (even as find yourself saying "This would never happen") My sense of humor is quite warped (as evidenced by this and Exley's somewhat low cume scores.) Though this probably wouldn't be the best title to start exploring his work, if you've got a weird sense of humor, do give Brock Clarke a try. His name deserves more recognition. (says the guy who 5-starred his Exley but confused him with a porn star).
What was turning out to be a mildly disappointing comedy (channeling, perhaps, the likes of Christopher Buckley and other satirists with a geo-political bent) became hugely disappointing once I realized, about 75% of the way through, that Brock Clarke (a pseudonymous porn-star-sounding name if there ever was one) was the author of Exley, one of my favorite books I read in 2012. The Happiest People in the World, though often quite funny, is hampered by a convoluted plot, and by no fault of Mr. Clarke's, terrible timing.
It's only been a few weeks since the tragic events stemming from the most recent terrorist attack of the Paris-based offices of left-wing cartoon magazine Charlie Hebdo, so when it's revealed that the main character of THPITW, Jens Baedrup, a schlubby cartoonist for a a second rate newspaper in Denmark (home of those Happiest People in the World), is tasked with creating a cartoon to commemorate the anniversary of the Jyllands-Posten cartoon depicting Mohammed in a satiric fashion (and spurring a huge uproar with Muslims world-wide), it's impossible not to wonder how Mr. Clarke is planning to wring comedy out of tragedy.
To his credit, the book is somewhat funny, particularly after protag Jens, when a pair of wannabe-Muslim youths torch his house and newspaper office, has his death faked by the CIA and is eventually relocated to Broomeville, a somewhat backwards, surely Muslim-free town in upstate New York. There, Jens becomes Henrik (or Henry), a Swede who lands a job as a guidance counselor at the high school (and somehow, finds his life becoming even more complicated than hiding from Muslim assassins in Denmark).
The ambitious storyline threatens to implode several times, but there's just enough humor to keep things bouncing along (even as find yourself saying "This would never happen") My sense of humor is quite warped (as evidenced by this and Exley's somewhat low cume scores.) Though this probably wouldn't be the best title to start exploring his work, if you've got a weird sense of humor, do give Brock Clarke a try. His name deserves more recognition. (says the guy who 5-starred his Exley but confused him with a porn star).
December 23, 2014
Only the most intrepid or giddy readers persist in the search for a great new comic novel. We know it must be out there, somewhere — like Bigfoot. Every few months, an excited alarm is raised in the forest of literary fiction; we rush to inspect the spoor (Thurber? Amis? ). Hmm. . . . Funny, but not really hilarious. The track is inconclusive. The search goes on.
Rumors about Brock Clarke’s new book, “The Happiest People in the World,” drove us weary explorers into fits of sniggering anticipation. This could be it. Clarke, an English professor at Bowdoin College, creates books that taste like delicious cuts of absurdity marbled with erudition. In 2007, he wrote a witty satire of literary culture called “An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England.” He followed that up with a darkly comic novel about a boy’s search for the American novelist Frederick Exley. (My recently retired colleague Jonathan Yardley makes an appearance in that story, which made it even more meta-funny for me.)
“The Happiest People in the World” is about Jens Baedrup, a cartoonist of “unshakable optimism” working for the Optimist newspaper in Skagen, Denmark, the happiest city in the happiest country in the world. He accepts an assignment to draw a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad, which a less optimistic cartoonist in a less happy city might have realized was not a good way to keep one’s job — or head. But the death threats go a long way toward changing Jens’s mind. When his newspaper is forced to close, and thugs burn down his house, he’s pretty well convinced that the situation is not optimal.
You may recall the very unfunny, real-life antecedent of this novel’s premise. Ten years ago, cartoons about Muhammad in a Danish newspaper sparked protests, riots and violence around the world. But if comedy is tragedy plus time, maybe nearly a decade is enough. Maybe a clueless artist stumbling into a propeller of Islamic rage could be spun into satiric hilarity.
Apparently not.
Clarke may be playing with fire here, but he’s wearing so many oven mitts that the humor feels ham-fisted and lukewarm. I don’t blame him for smothering the potential for death threats, but if you’re going to write a satire about the absurdity of Islamofascism, the comedy ain’t over till the fatwa sings.
Instead, Clarke quickly shifts his novel to America, where it wanders along with a series of crazy incidents about family life and secret agents. The CIA, you see, has floated a story that Jens was killed when arsonists destroyed his home. As it’s wont to do, the agency sets up the Danish cartoonist as a high school guidance counselor in the little town of Broomeville, N.Y., which — please keep this to yourself — is a recruitment center for new agents. Jens disguises his real identity by telling everyone he’s from Sweden. The top spy keeps watch on things through a camera in the eye of the moose head hanging in a bar owned by the principal’s wife.
So far, so “Get Smart.” But the novel’s zaniness pokes along obediently at 55 mph. This is a comic thriller so obvious that it should come with its own spoiler alerts. The madcap traits of “The Happiest People in the World” are domesticated into submission as we get all bogged down in the principal’s failing marriage and his son’s adolescent problems. Jokes about how dull high school is show up like retired teachers at a reunion, familiar but not very interesting. The secret agents bumble around — one of them vomits violently whenever he kills someone — but too often, Clarke’s nerve fails him; he rarely exploits the potential here for Coen Brothers-style bloody fun.
Instead, the novel relies heavily on two stylistic techniques that generate diminishing returns. The first is to represent characters’ thoughts in absurdly long, make-it-stop-make-it-stop, run-on sentences that suggest the confused, circuitous nature of their minds. (I’d offer you an example, but it would take up all the space I have here.) Clarke’s second technique is to repeat words or phrases, as in this passage in which the principal’s son unknowingly confronts a secret agent:
“ ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,’ Kurt said. He said this really, really slowly, as slowly as he possibly could. He often did this with his parents: he would talk slowly so that it would seem to them that he must be on drugs and so that they’d eventually ask, all worried, ‘Are you on drugs?’ and he’d get to say, in his normal voice, ‘No, I can’t believe you’d ask me that!’ because even when he was on drugs, the drugs didn’t make him talk that way. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,’ he said, slowly, slowly.”
Quickly, quickly, that comic tic quickly loses its ability to amuse. Which is a shame because “The Happiest People in the World” contains amusing elements — about marriage, small towns, Danes and spies — but they’re weighed down in the corpulent body of this novel.
This review first appeared in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
Rumors about Brock Clarke’s new book, “The Happiest People in the World,” drove us weary explorers into fits of sniggering anticipation. This could be it. Clarke, an English professor at Bowdoin College, creates books that taste like delicious cuts of absurdity marbled with erudition. In 2007, he wrote a witty satire of literary culture called “An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England.” He followed that up with a darkly comic novel about a boy’s search for the American novelist Frederick Exley. (My recently retired colleague Jonathan Yardley makes an appearance in that story, which made it even more meta-funny for me.)
“The Happiest People in the World” is about Jens Baedrup, a cartoonist of “unshakable optimism” working for the Optimist newspaper in Skagen, Denmark, the happiest city in the happiest country in the world. He accepts an assignment to draw a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad, which a less optimistic cartoonist in a less happy city might have realized was not a good way to keep one’s job — or head. But the death threats go a long way toward changing Jens’s mind. When his newspaper is forced to close, and thugs burn down his house, he’s pretty well convinced that the situation is not optimal.
You may recall the very unfunny, real-life antecedent of this novel’s premise. Ten years ago, cartoons about Muhammad in a Danish newspaper sparked protests, riots and violence around the world. But if comedy is tragedy plus time, maybe nearly a decade is enough. Maybe a clueless artist stumbling into a propeller of Islamic rage could be spun into satiric hilarity.
Apparently not.
Clarke may be playing with fire here, but he’s wearing so many oven mitts that the humor feels ham-fisted and lukewarm. I don’t blame him for smothering the potential for death threats, but if you’re going to write a satire about the absurdity of Islamofascism, the comedy ain’t over till the fatwa sings.
Instead, Clarke quickly shifts his novel to America, where it wanders along with a series of crazy incidents about family life and secret agents. The CIA, you see, has floated a story that Jens was killed when arsonists destroyed his home. As it’s wont to do, the agency sets up the Danish cartoonist as a high school guidance counselor in the little town of Broomeville, N.Y., which — please keep this to yourself — is a recruitment center for new agents. Jens disguises his real identity by telling everyone he’s from Sweden. The top spy keeps watch on things through a camera in the eye of the moose head hanging in a bar owned by the principal’s wife.
So far, so “Get Smart.” But the novel’s zaniness pokes along obediently at 55 mph. This is a comic thriller so obvious that it should come with its own spoiler alerts. The madcap traits of “The Happiest People in the World” are domesticated into submission as we get all bogged down in the principal’s failing marriage and his son’s adolescent problems. Jokes about how dull high school is show up like retired teachers at a reunion, familiar but not very interesting. The secret agents bumble around — one of them vomits violently whenever he kills someone — but too often, Clarke’s nerve fails him; he rarely exploits the potential here for Coen Brothers-style bloody fun.
Instead, the novel relies heavily on two stylistic techniques that generate diminishing returns. The first is to represent characters’ thoughts in absurdly long, make-it-stop-make-it-stop, run-on sentences that suggest the confused, circuitous nature of their minds. (I’d offer you an example, but it would take up all the space I have here.) Clarke’s second technique is to repeat words or phrases, as in this passage in which the principal’s son unknowingly confronts a secret agent:
“ ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,’ Kurt said. He said this really, really slowly, as slowly as he possibly could. He often did this with his parents: he would talk slowly so that it would seem to them that he must be on drugs and so that they’d eventually ask, all worried, ‘Are you on drugs?’ and he’d get to say, in his normal voice, ‘No, I can’t believe you’d ask me that!’ because even when he was on drugs, the drugs didn’t make him talk that way. ‘I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,’ he said, slowly, slowly.”
Quickly, quickly, that comic tic quickly loses its ability to amuse. Which is a shame because “The Happiest People in the World” contains amusing elements — about marriage, small towns, Danes and spies — but they’re weighed down in the corpulent body of this novel.
This review first appeared in The Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/enterta...
November 8, 2014
On the cover is a perfect quote from another author, Peter Orner, describing this book: "As hilarious and thought provoking as it is ultimately deadly, deadly serious."
Serious were the repercussions when a Danish cartoonist depicted the prophet Muhammed with a bomb planted beneath his turban-- true story from a couple years back, you will recall. So then here we have a cartoonist for a much smaller Danish newspaper, who is assigned to depict in some way the controversy that the first cartoon created. Jens figures no one is going to see his cartoon anyway, and besides, it's his job. But of course the reactions are similar to the first, Jens' house and his newspaper are burned to the ground; his wife leaves him. Jens goes into hiding, eventually landing in Muslim-free upstate New York as a school guidance counselor with a new identity, as arranged by the CIA. He knows nothing about guidance counseling, but neither did the woman he replaced. The CIA operatives seem to be everywhere in this town and their bumbling incompetence provides much of the humor.
Some good social and political satire here with many quirky, odd characters. A likeable read, courtesy of LibraryThings.com. 3.5 stars.
Serious were the repercussions when a Danish cartoonist depicted the prophet Muhammed with a bomb planted beneath his turban-- true story from a couple years back, you will recall. So then here we have a cartoonist for a much smaller Danish newspaper, who is assigned to depict in some way the controversy that the first cartoon created. Jens figures no one is going to see his cartoon anyway, and besides, it's his job. But of course the reactions are similar to the first, Jens' house and his newspaper are burned to the ground; his wife leaves him. Jens goes into hiding, eventually landing in Muslim-free upstate New York as a school guidance counselor with a new identity, as arranged by the CIA. He knows nothing about guidance counseling, but neither did the woman he replaced. The CIA operatives seem to be everywhere in this town and their bumbling incompetence provides much of the humor.
Some good social and political satire here with many quirky, odd characters. A likeable read, courtesy of LibraryThings.com. 3.5 stars.
December 22, 2014
Interesting novel, but with so many characters I had a hard time keeping track of everyone. When some of the characters have multiple names, I really get confused!
Wasn't as funny as the blurbs on the book jacket say it is. The humor is cerebral and dark, not as accessible as something that might fall into the Humorous Fiction genre.
Good plot and well developed characters, but just too many of them for me to keep track of easily; especially when you only read a chapter or two every other night for three weeks.
Wasn't as funny as the blurbs on the book jacket say it is. The humor is cerebral and dark, not as accessible as something that might fall into the Humorous Fiction genre.
Good plot and well developed characters, but just too many of them for me to keep track of easily; especially when you only read a chapter or two every other night for three weeks.
January 1, 2019
Nothing like starting off the year with a 1-star review.
I should have heeded the low ratings on goodreads, but I really enjoyed the quirky humor of "An Arsonists' Guide to Writer's Homes;" although I did not enjoy "Exley."
This book was terrible and had one of the worst cases of Lazy Writing ever. It truly felt like the author had written it in one sitting, overnight, while getting sleepier & sleepier, and submitted his one, rambling, horrible first draft the next morning.
I should have heeded the low ratings on goodreads, but I really enjoyed the quirky humor of "An Arsonists' Guide to Writer's Homes;" although I did not enjoy "Exley."
This book was terrible and had one of the worst cases of Lazy Writing ever. It truly felt like the author had written it in one sitting, overnight, while getting sleepier & sleepier, and submitted his one, rambling, horrible first draft the next morning.
September 19, 2020
2.5
Book overall, one word review would be "Absurd". Other than that?
That ending. Not my style.
Book overall, one word review would be "Absurd". Other than that?
That ending. Not my style.
January 15, 2015
Wonderful. Few books make me laugh out loud and this did. Clarke's writing is elegant and witty. I can't even imagine how he came up with the plot, which has become somewhat creepy with recent events. The action is wildly and weirdly hyperbolic, yet at it's core the novel has something to say about the small things in life; marriage, parenting, small towns and international spies.
October 22, 2023
The story was fairly predictable. I didn’t think it was comedic and felt like it could’ve pushed the absurdity even more. I enjoyed the story and thought it was well paced
June 3, 2021
"An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England" is one of my favorite books. This one also involves arson.
November 6, 2014
"The moose head was fixed to the wall, the microphone in its mouth was broken, but the camera in its left eye was working just fine, and as far as the moose head could see, this was just another Friday night in the Lumber Lodge! Perhaps even more Friday night than most Friday nights."Thus begins the wild, excellent, wicked~smart ride that is The Happiest People In The World , and this is anything but "just another" Novel... it is quite definitely more Novel than most Novels.
Clarke's most recent work is certainly a book that can hold contradictions, beautifully: It is a lightning fast read, but one that will encourage multiple readings... it is at once a sort of spy novel(but also, not), a playful romp, a darkly & deeply funny literary work, and underneath the fast-paced narrative, a quiet, heart-breaking meditation on the complicated, interlaced relationships that us humans find ourselves in, day~in and day~out. Happiest People is a snapshot of American Culture, as seen by both outsiders of the 'from another country' type, and by the outsiders that are from within this country (which is most of us who vote(or don't) by ballot, or by creative endeavor, or by good hard labor or one kind or another), the policy non-makers, the trend non-setters, the mass of people who are not on the inside, if such a thing exists.
On one level, this novel could be suggesting that there is no inside, nobody in-the-know, and that all that we see happening around us, and all that we are personally enveloped in, is a hodge-podge of splinter groups acting out their lives along vectors that are sometimes lonely, often paranoid, and sometimes crash into others; and this at every level: government, education, in our homes. A horde of everyday people who have, as Aldous Huxley wrote, "failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions" and who will more frequently than not, ruin ourselves in the name of Love. And as sad as that may be, it is pretty damn funny, too, seen in the right light. Like, say, the light of the Lumber Lodge on a Friday night! Brock Clarke shows us to be the broken, but working (sort of) beings that we are, who see what we think we see, and react accordingly.
Were I to set to making a Super Smoothie! of writing that would begin to get at Clarke's creation here, I would have to throw in some (maybe all of) George Saunders for sure, some John le Carré, some Russell Banks, Richard Russo, David Foster Wallace, Alice Munro, John Irving, Kurt Vonnegut, Andre Dubus, Tobias Wolff, Andrea Barrett, Joanna Scott, David Sedaris, a dollop of Christopher Buckley, 5 or 6 stories from The Brothers Grimm, a bunch of Tony Hoagland poems, and a solid handful of pages from Them, by Jon Ronson; A House In The Sky, by Amanda Lindhout and Sara Corbett; and Driving Mr. Albert, by Mike Paterniti. That's where i'd start, anyway... No doubt, i'd have to work a long time, and throw in a great many more works to really get at the subtlety, complexity, and sheer tastiness of The Happiest People In The World .
Like many people who are gifted, but then add to that gift by working really hard, Clarke makes an incredibly layered, complicated work seem effortless, and as such it is easy to read and fun, but thought-provoking, and poignant as well. No small feat, that. This is a book that I have already recommended widely to my friends, but feel it is one to be recommended widely to all of the reading public.
Do yourself a huge favor and get a hold of The Happiest People In The World !
Enjoy....
November 5, 2014
As is often the case I received this book free in exchange for a review. This time it was through LibraryThing. Despite that kindness I give my absolutely candid thoughts below.
Boiling down the plot to its most essential internals, the story revolves around a Danish cartoonist who pokes fun at the wrong religious figure and is forced to flee his life and family to take refuge in America. Once he gets there he finds that all is not as it seems.
To the positive side, the book certainly doesn't fall into any cliche tendencies and always keeps you guessing as to what exactly might be next. Even when you think you've seen what's next the what next you finally end up with is nothing like what you thought you had just a couple of pages ago. The back of the jacket describes the book as funny and I don't see funny so much as I do odd. The book's very first chapter, written from the perspective of a mounted moose head, is worth a glare at the least. Our estimable dust jacket also calls the book "smart" and I'd agree with that at least in part. It's not afraid to be bubblingly complex.
To the negative, there are bits of this book that glide along quite nicely but for the majority of it I felt it hard to follow. Most main characters go by at least two names and the primary one goes by three that are used somewhat interchangeably. After a hundred pages I had to go back to the start and take some notes to figure out who was who. Combine that with the tendency of one's mind to wander during much of the text and you end up with a frightful combination fraught with "Who the heck is THAT now?!" moments. Lastly, the story itself starts out bizarrely interesting and ends in an almost frustratingly drawn out manner. By the final 10 pages I was violently apathetic about what was going to happen next and almost threw the book in annoyance. I've never had this exact reaction to a book before and it makes me doubt my sanity in some ways.
In summary, not a book I'd recommend to anyone. It has some clever bits but they're so hard to dig out that I don't think the whole thing was really worth it by the end. That's a pity; it was my hope that the book would make me one of the Happiest People in the World.
Boiling down the plot to its most essential internals, the story revolves around a Danish cartoonist who pokes fun at the wrong religious figure and is forced to flee his life and family to take refuge in America. Once he gets there he finds that all is not as it seems.
To the positive side, the book certainly doesn't fall into any cliche tendencies and always keeps you guessing as to what exactly might be next. Even when you think you've seen what's next the what next you finally end up with is nothing like what you thought you had just a couple of pages ago. The back of the jacket describes the book as funny and I don't see funny so much as I do odd. The book's very first chapter, written from the perspective of a mounted moose head, is worth a glare at the least. Our estimable dust jacket also calls the book "smart" and I'd agree with that at least in part. It's not afraid to be bubblingly complex.
To the negative, there are bits of this book that glide along quite nicely but for the majority of it I felt it hard to follow. Most main characters go by at least two names and the primary one goes by three that are used somewhat interchangeably. After a hundred pages I had to go back to the start and take some notes to figure out who was who. Combine that with the tendency of one's mind to wander during much of the text and you end up with a frightful combination fraught with "Who the heck is THAT now?!" moments. Lastly, the story itself starts out bizarrely interesting and ends in an almost frustratingly drawn out manner. By the final 10 pages I was violently apathetic about what was going to happen next and almost threw the book in annoyance. I've never had this exact reaction to a book before and it makes me doubt my sanity in some ways.
In summary, not a book I'd recommend to anyone. It has some clever bits but they're so hard to dig out that I don't think the whole thing was really worth it by the end. That's a pity; it was my hope that the book would make me one of the Happiest People in the World.
August 23, 2015
At the urging of his newspaper editor, hapless Danish political cartoonist Jens Baedrup published a somewhat disrespectful drawing of Mohammed the Prophet. End result: Jens's house was torched, apparently by "Islamic fundamentalists", and he is presumed dead. He isn't actually dead, however. Instead, for his own protection, he is spirited away by an operative of the CIA to a small town in upstate New York. A stranger in a strange land, Jens changes his name to Henry, tells everyone he is Swedish, and tries to settle into his new life. Here's the unfortunate part: no one Jens/Henry meets is who they appear to be and everyone has an ulterior motive.
Brock Clarke's novel begins and ends with a bloodbath -- the same bloodbath, to be sure, but told from differing perspectives. The journey to that bloodbath is quirky, disconcerting, and filled with oddly poetic moments and disturbingly charming characters: Matty, the high school principal who also owns the town's most popular drinking establishment; Locs, the CIA operative still in love with Matty despite his return to his wife; Ellen, Matty's wife, who runs the bar and yearns for her husband to be someone other than who he is; Kurt, their teenage son, who might possibly be smarter than his parents although he hasn't figured that out yet; and a host of other idiosyncratic individuals, young and old, who make up the population of this tiny hotbed of intrigue.
Tight prose, simple straightforward sentences, great plot, great characters. I should have loved this book.
Here's the reason this is only three stars: its overweening self-conscious irony, almost like the author imbued his prose with a subtext that gloats, "Hahahah, look how clever I am!" And he is clever, but was it necessary to be so self-congratulatory about it?
Or maybe it's just that my sense of hipster sophistication is lacking.
Brock Clarke's novel begins and ends with a bloodbath -- the same bloodbath, to be sure, but told from differing perspectives. The journey to that bloodbath is quirky, disconcerting, and filled with oddly poetic moments and disturbingly charming characters: Matty, the high school principal who also owns the town's most popular drinking establishment; Locs, the CIA operative still in love with Matty despite his return to his wife; Ellen, Matty's wife, who runs the bar and yearns for her husband to be someone other than who he is; Kurt, their teenage son, who might possibly be smarter than his parents although he hasn't figured that out yet; and a host of other idiosyncratic individuals, young and old, who make up the population of this tiny hotbed of intrigue.
Tight prose, simple straightforward sentences, great plot, great characters. I should have loved this book.
Here's the reason this is only three stars: its overweening self-conscious irony, almost like the author imbued his prose with a subtext that gloats, "Hahahah, look how clever I am!" And he is clever, but was it necessary to be so self-congratulatory about it?
Or maybe it's just that my sense of hipster sophistication is lacking.
June 22, 2022
Brock Clarke's The Happiest People in the World is a smart satire set in upstate New York. A Danish cartoonist, who has to flee his life when he draws an image of Mohammed for his newspaper, is relocated to Broomeville, NY by a rogue spy. This spy has had a previous relationship with the married principal of the local high school. The town itself is filled with a bunch of interesting, quirky characters and end up in a Mexican showdown, the aftermath which is shown in the first scene of the book.
Having been a resident of upstate New York for a few years, Clarke has gotten the somewhat odd nature of that part of the world down pat. Some time is spent in Denmark as well and he portrays the alien nature, to Americans, of that country.
It is not a perfect book, and I probably would have gotten more out of it if I read it in one sitting. There are a ton of characters, each with a unique motivation, that are necessary to keep straight. The fact that they often have additional identities as part of their situation (spy, job, hiding out) doesn't help keep things straight. There are some laugh out loud moments, but mostly it is a wry book. That doesn't mean there isn't some emotion and seriousness here though. Definitely worth a read if any of this sounds up your alley.
Having been a resident of upstate New York for a few years, Clarke has gotten the somewhat odd nature of that part of the world down pat. Some time is spent in Denmark as well and he portrays the alien nature, to Americans, of that country.
It is not a perfect book, and I probably would have gotten more out of it if I read it in one sitting. There are a ton of characters, each with a unique motivation, that are necessary to keep straight. The fact that they often have additional identities as part of their situation (spy, job, hiding out) doesn't help keep things straight. There are some laugh out loud moments, but mostly it is a wry book. That doesn't mean there isn't some emotion and seriousness here though. Definitely worth a read if any of this sounds up your alley.
November 14, 2014
The moment after I finished this book, I started pacing around my room alternating between "What the hell" and "I can't believe he did that." The Happiest People in the World is a messy tangle of characters, relationships, and motivations but Clarke picks at one string after another until it all comes together (or rather falls apart).
The opening prologue is baffling, though entertainingly told through the eyes of a mounted moose head, but it is immensely satisfying to return to after finishing the book and ultimately sets the stage well for the book. The prose is deceptively simple, but often I was hit with the immense truths and insights Clarke managed to pack in his straightforward style. The unaffected writing also highlights the most compelling part of this novel - the characters. Their motivations and reasoning are complicated, at times convoluted, and yet their emotions resonate. The dark humor that only gets darker as the book goes on is the icing on top.
Trust Clarke to take you on this journey with a bunch of liars, spies, and teachers.
The opening prologue is baffling, though entertainingly told through the eyes of a mounted moose head, but it is immensely satisfying to return to after finishing the book and ultimately sets the stage well for the book. The prose is deceptively simple, but often I was hit with the immense truths and insights Clarke managed to pack in his straightforward style. The unaffected writing also highlights the most compelling part of this novel - the characters. Their motivations and reasoning are complicated, at times convoluted, and yet their emotions resonate. The dark humor that only gets darker as the book goes on is the icing on top.
Trust Clarke to take you on this journey with a bunch of liars, spies, and teachers.
November 25, 2014
This book came to me via LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.
This peculiar story, about a Danish cartoonist in a sort of witness protection program who ends up in a small American town and becomes entwined in the lives of the inhabitants (and the secret agents who oversee his protection), is rather bizarre. It is odd, in a style that reminds me of Catch-22 because it is seemingly random, illogical, about conspiracies and circular plotlines entangled in each other -- though not nearly as deeply or as absurdly as Catch-22 is. Reminiscent: not identical.
It's not a difficult read, and I finished it in just over a weekend. Probably good to read it in only a few sittings, so that you don't get lost in the who's who and why, etc. I didn't hate it, and there's quite possibly more to it than meets the eye, though I don't know that it merits deep study. Possibly a good holiday read that still has a bit of substance.
This peculiar story, about a Danish cartoonist in a sort of witness protection program who ends up in a small American town and becomes entwined in the lives of the inhabitants (and the secret agents who oversee his protection), is rather bizarre. It is odd, in a style that reminds me of Catch-22 because it is seemingly random, illogical, about conspiracies and circular plotlines entangled in each other -- though not nearly as deeply or as absurdly as Catch-22 is. Reminiscent: not identical.
It's not a difficult read, and I finished it in just over a weekend. Probably good to read it in only a few sittings, so that you don't get lost in the who's who and why, etc. I didn't hate it, and there's quite possibly more to it than meets the eye, though I don't know that it merits deep study. Possibly a good holiday read that still has a bit of substance.
November 19, 2014
Book Review & Giveaway: Brock Clarke is an award-winning, bestselling author who writes quirky books, the kind we love. So it probably would have been a no brainer to agree to read his latest novel, The Happiest People In The World, even if the description hadn’t made me laugh out loud. It’s been called a madcap adventure and it definitely is. It’s also a thriller of sorts, with characters who could have easily fit into the old TV spy show Get Smart. At its center is a person who is convinced everything will turn out just fine, even while the world seems to be doing everything in its power to keep that from happening. And it has as its springboard real events (at least in the very beginning of the story). If that all sounds a bit odd, no worries because Brock Clarke is a master storyteller and he makes it work beautifully…so beautifully in fact that I was extremely tempted to keep this one instead of offering it in a giveaway someone will win at http://popcornreads.com/?p=7908.
August 16, 2015
I quit reading this after about 50 pp. then I went on my trusty goodreads and saw all these four and five star review. So, I gave it another go. Still didn't work for me. First of all, it was based on the so-not-funny response to a cartoon of Mohammed. Seriousy. Not funny.
I never really understood anyone's motivation. And I didn't really like anyone except the teenager Kurt. Clarke opened the story by telling the end of the story. I'm never fond of this technique. Does the author hope you'll forget and feel suspense. I, when I forget, just go back and read it again. I mean it's right there with answers to any questions I might have.
There were also holes in the plotline but I don't really want to put any more energy into this book. After reading this, I was the unhappiest person in the world.
I never really understood anyone's motivation. And I didn't really like anyone except the teenager Kurt. Clarke opened the story by telling the end of the story. I'm never fond of this technique. Does the author hope you'll forget and feel suspense. I, when I forget, just go back and read it again. I mean it's right there with answers to any questions I might have.
There were also holes in the plotline but I don't really want to put any more energy into this book. After reading this, I was the unhappiest person in the world.
January 10, 2015
There's a quote on the cover of this book that says, "As hilarious and thought provoking as it is ultimately deadly, deadly serious." Maybe I just didn't get it, but I did not find The Happiest People in the World to be hilarious or thought provoking. Somewhat amusing, sure.
It's a bizarre tale of a Danish cartoonist who goes into witness protection after drawing a cartoon depicting Muhammed, winds up in a small upstate New York town, and entangles with the locals. Most of the men are bumbling fools. Most of the women are cranky bitches. Despite the explanations, I still didn't understand anyone's motivations for anything they did.
Overall it felt like it was trying, and failing, to be a Carl Hiaasen book. At least it's a quick read, so I don't feel like I wasted time on it.
It's a bizarre tale of a Danish cartoonist who goes into witness protection after drawing a cartoon depicting Muhammed, winds up in a small upstate New York town, and entangles with the locals. Most of the men are bumbling fools. Most of the women are cranky bitches. Despite the explanations, I still didn't understand anyone's motivations for anything they did.
Overall it felt like it was trying, and failing, to be a Carl Hiaasen book. At least it's a quick read, so I don't feel like I wasted time on it.
September 28, 2014
Easily one of the strangest books I've ever read.
The writing style is weird as hell. It's a lot of run on sentences and trains of thought like for instance one man looks at another man at a baseball game and the first man thinks about all the emotions that are going into this look and that description runs a full page with no periods, just a lot of commas. If you hate that last sentence, this may not be the book for you.
Despite the writing I really enjoyed trying to figure out how all of these characters really fit together. The puzzle of it all almost makes up for how much I hate the ending.
The writing style is weird as hell. It's a lot of run on sentences and trains of thought like for instance one man looks at another man at a baseball game and the first man thinks about all the emotions that are going into this look and that description runs a full page with no periods, just a lot of commas. If you hate that last sentence, this may not be the book for you.
Despite the writing I really enjoyed trying to figure out how all of these characters really fit together. The puzzle of it all almost makes up for how much I hate the ending.
July 19, 2015
Brock Clarke is a funny author. He has written several funny books, among them Exley and The Arsonists Guide to Writer's Homes in New England. I have always said that I think writing a truly funny book is one of the hardest things to accomplish for an author. I still think that, but Clarke can still do it. Despite the humor and the piquant characters, there is still a body count at the end of this book that rivals Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. Which are not particularly funny plays. But still. If you like entertaining and amusing books, you should read this one and then anything else that you can find by Clarke.
March 11, 2015
I just couldn't do it. I could not finish this book. I kept thinking it would get better, but I was forcing myself to read it, and reading should be pleasurable. I understand the author's intent when using very long run on sentences to illustrate the rambling thoughts of the characters, but I became very tired of these one page sentences. Upon reading one run on sentence that took up two pages, I closed the book (though I was midway through) and will not open it again. There are too many other books I'd like to read.
March 10, 2015
This started out as a quirky, comical novel that one would expect from Clarke. As the story progresses though things become much more serious and in the end becomes quite the thriller with great observations about our modern culture and our inclusiveness, or lack thereof. Witily written this is a very entertaining book. The conversations that the characters have inside their own heads are right on! I didn't want to put this one down, especially the last 50 pages or so. A fun and exciting read.
February 20, 2015
to be clear here, couple stars for humor, and couple for small town life and immigrants in the midst, and couple for the plot that won't stop, but two extra stars for timeliness, about a hapless danish cartoonist moved to small town new england usa for his own safety as the fatwa against him is serious stuff.
is free speech and freedom of thought truly a human right, or a brief anomaly of human history? that the novel is accessible i guess is part of the answer.
is free speech and freedom of thought truly a human right, or a brief anomaly of human history? that the novel is accessible i guess is part of the answer.
January 10, 2015
Absolutely couldn't put this book down once I started reading it; clarke's novel re-imagines a small lumber town as the home base of a seemingly unsupervised CIA cell but as with all Clarke's novels, it's the absurdity of our lives that takes center stage.
November 4, 2014
Made me laugh out loud numerous times. Dark and smart!
March 13, 2015
Fair book. Rather odd.
March 3, 2015
This had potential, but the most pathetic and utterly pointless ending ruined any potential. Waste of my reading life, can't get those hours back.
July 3, 2018
Didn’t finish it, promptly returned to library. Couldn’t do it. Characters were uninteresting and I couldn’t keep them straight or imagine why they’re important. Got to page 75 or so. 🤷♀️ I tried.
April 7, 2022
Mildly amusing and interesting with some very astute observations and descriptions. The premise was ridiculous, but the end was satisfying
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