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Now We Will Be Happy
Now We Will Be Happy is a prize-winning collection of stories about Afro-Puerto Ricans, U.S.-mainland-born Puerto Ricans, and displaced native Puerto Ricans who are living between spaces while attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines their identity. Amina Gautier’s characters deal with the difficulties of bicultural identities in a world that wants them to choose only one.
The characters in Now We Will Be Happy are as unpredictable as they are human. A teenage boy leaves home in search of the mother he hasn’t seen since childhood; a granddaughter is sent across the ocean to broker peace between her relatives; a widow seeks to die by hurricane; a married woman takes a bathtub voyage with her lover; a proprietress who is the glue that binds her neighborhood cannot hold on to her own son; a displaced wife develops a strange addiction to candles.
Crossing boundaries of comfort, culture, language, race, and tradition in unexpected ways, these characters struggle valiantly and doggedly to reconcile their fantasies of happiness with the realities of their existence.
The characters in Now We Will Be Happy are as unpredictable as they are human. A teenage boy leaves home in search of the mother he hasn’t seen since childhood; a granddaughter is sent across the ocean to broker peace between her relatives; a widow seeks to die by hurricane; a married woman takes a bathtub voyage with her lover; a proprietress who is the glue that binds her neighborhood cannot hold on to her own son; a displaced wife develops a strange addiction to candles.
Crossing boundaries of comfort, culture, language, race, and tradition in unexpected ways, these characters struggle valiantly and doggedly to reconcile their fantasies of happiness with the realities of their existence.
- GenresShort StoriesFiction
140 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2014
10 people are currently reading
412 people want to read
About the author
Amina Gautier
20 books108 followersAmina Gautier is the author of the short story collections At-Risk, Winner of the Flannery O'Connor Award (University of Georgia Press, 2011), Now We Will Be Happy, Winner of the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction (University of Nebraska Press, 2014), and The Loss of All Lost Things (Elixir Press, 2016. She has published over ninety short stories. They appear in Agni, Best African American Fiction, Callaloo, Glimmer Train, Iowa Review, Kenyon Review, New Stories From the South, Notre Dame Review, North American Review, Prairie Schooner, Southern Review, and Storyquarterly among other places.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
February 13, 2016
I absolutely adored this collection of 11 short stories by Amina Gautier. This writer came onto my radar when I read her guest blog post about Nella Larsen on Chicago Public Library’s website (http://www.chipublib.org/blogs/post/g...). Now We Will Be Happy was described [on the CPL website] as being “about Afro-Puerto Ricans, U.S.-mainland-born Puerto Ricans and displaced native Puerto Ricans who are attempting to navigate the unique culture that defines Puerto Rican identity.” Around that time I was listening---daily---to a recording by composer & saxophonist, Miguel Zenon---who is of Puerto Rican heritage---entitled “Identities Are Changeable.” I looked forward to getting my hands on a copy of Gautier’s book, wondering if it might enrich the great musical and cultural journey Zenon’s music had invited me to explore.
Now We Will Be Happy (named after the song “Ahora Seremos Felices” by Rafael Hernandez) is wonderfully put together. Even as I felt emotionally involved with the stories, I was also admiring the the author’s work. Gautier uses multigenerational voices, speaks from many perspectives: daughter, granddaughter, brother, son, child, elder; elders, and lovers. Music and food and geographical descriptions are provided in generous proportions.
Five of the stories are “stand-alones” and explore things such as what it is like for two brothers being raised by their ex-boxer father after being taken from their mother while very young; children trying to express their affection in grown-up ways; the poignantly loving bond between a granddaughter and her grandmother; and how hurricanes are experienced by those living in Puerto Rico contrasted with how their relatives---tucked safely away on the mainland perceive these major, life-altering ‘acts of God.”
Of the remaining six stories, three of them: “Bodega,” “Only Son,” and “Palabras” broke my heart with its illustration of complicated and unforeseen fractures in three generations of a family. The stories “Now we Will Be Happy” and “Muneca” are also joined together in an unexpected way.
This book is only 128 pages long so I don’t want to give everything away. It’s palpably good. I highly recommend you “taste” this book for yourself! Highly impressionable, reading this collection inspired me to make my own playlist of music that includes songs by Hector Lavoe, Tito Nieves, Willie Colon, and Tito Puente. I hope someday to eat authentic mofongo and arroz con pollo!
And in case you’re thinking that these are “ merely more immigrant stories” of more spanish-speaking folk, be reminded that Puerto Ricans are U. S. citizens.
xo
Now We Will Be Happy (named after the song “Ahora Seremos Felices” by Rafael Hernandez) is wonderfully put together. Even as I felt emotionally involved with the stories, I was also admiring the the author’s work. Gautier uses multigenerational voices, speaks from many perspectives: daughter, granddaughter, brother, son, child, elder; elders, and lovers. Music and food and geographical descriptions are provided in generous proportions.
Five of the stories are “stand-alones” and explore things such as what it is like for two brothers being raised by their ex-boxer father after being taken from their mother while very young; children trying to express their affection in grown-up ways; the poignantly loving bond between a granddaughter and her grandmother; and how hurricanes are experienced by those living in Puerto Rico contrasted with how their relatives---tucked safely away on the mainland perceive these major, life-altering ‘acts of God.”
Of the remaining six stories, three of them: “Bodega,” “Only Son,” and “Palabras” broke my heart with its illustration of complicated and unforeseen fractures in three generations of a family. The stories “Now we Will Be Happy” and “Muneca” are also joined together in an unexpected way.
This book is only 128 pages long so I don’t want to give everything away. It’s palpably good. I highly recommend you “taste” this book for yourself! Highly impressionable, reading this collection inspired me to make my own playlist of music that includes songs by Hector Lavoe, Tito Nieves, Willie Colon, and Tito Puente. I hope someday to eat authentic mofongo and arroz con pollo!
And in case you’re thinking that these are “ merely more immigrant stories” of more spanish-speaking folk, be reminded that Puerto Ricans are U. S. citizens.
xo
August 28, 2017
4.5 stars. I loved this collection so so much. Why isn't Amina Gautier celebrated more for her work?? In the beginning, I felt the writing in this collection was a bit too calculated; but eventually, I began to appreciate her style.
Gautier's writing is generously descriptive without being superfluous. All the characters and storylines in this collection were wonderfully textured and unique.
I loved how Gautier explored Black and Puerto Rican identities through the characters. Some characters are a hybrid of both identities while others are Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico, some living on the mainland and others have the best of both worlds. I enjoyed how the characters in this collection were all interconnected. We see characters grow from one story to the next; it was so pleasant to see what various characters were up to months later. Characters deal with the stress of having bicultural identities, infidelity, abuse (of all kinds), family drama, love, homesickness, regret, pain, racial/ cultural prejudices.
(The first story, 'Aguanile' and fifth story, 'How to Make Flan' really struck me and had me thinking they were personal to Amina Gautier, as the main character almost matched her background).
I want to read more of Gautier's work! Shouts to Leslie and Ifeyinwa for piquing my interest in purchasing this collection. I was not disappointed! In-depth review + quotes on africanbookaddict.com, eventually.
Gautier's writing is generously descriptive without being superfluous. All the characters and storylines in this collection were wonderfully textured and unique.
I loved how Gautier explored Black and Puerto Rican identities through the characters. Some characters are a hybrid of both identities while others are Puerto Ricans living in Puerto Rico, some living on the mainland and others have the best of both worlds. I enjoyed how the characters in this collection were all interconnected. We see characters grow from one story to the next; it was so pleasant to see what various characters were up to months later. Characters deal with the stress of having bicultural identities, infidelity, abuse (of all kinds), family drama, love, homesickness, regret, pain, racial/ cultural prejudices.
(The first story, 'Aguanile' and fifth story, 'How to Make Flan' really struck me and had me thinking they were personal to Amina Gautier, as the main character almost matched her background).
I want to read more of Gautier's work! Shouts to Leslie and Ifeyinwa for piquing my interest in purchasing this collection. I was not disappointed! In-depth review + quotes on africanbookaddict.com, eventually.
September 4, 2015
Read this during my commute to work. In retrospect, I think if I had read this in one sitting, I would have given it a 5-start. Beautifully written collection of short stories!
April 28, 2016
Read my full review here: http://readherlikeanopenbook.com/2014...
One of the most encouraging developments in contemporary literature is the increased attention being paid to Afro-Caribbean writers. Writers such as Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Esmeralda Santiago (Puerto Rico), and Tiphanie Yanique (Virgin Islands) are acclaimed for their distinctive contributions to this literature of both a place and a way of being. Amina Gautier now stakes her claim to join this esteemed group of writers.
Gautier, who is of African-American and Puerto Rican descent and who understands both cultures intimately, has published more than 75 stories in some of the country’s most prestigious literary journals. She won the 2011 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, leading to the publication of her first collection, At-Risk, in 2012. That volume probed the lives of African-Americans in Brooklyn with empathy and passion.
...
In these eleven finely wrought stories, the characters face questions of identity raised by family members and society but most often by their own divided hearts and minds. They struggle with remaining authentically Puerto Rican while embracing the idea of being an American. Does that require frequent trips back to the island, having a wide circle of PR friends, speaking Spanish (how much?), attending cultural events and waving the flag literally or figuratively? Who decides? How can one be comfortable in his or her own skin when dealing with matters of nationality, culture, race, ethnicity, and language? And these complexities are not simplified by the fact that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
... [discussion of several stories]
Now We Will Be Happy is as good a collection of stories as I have read in the past year or two. These are powerful, haunting stories that will have you wondering how the characters are doing weeks after you’ve finished reading it. Anyone interested in how immigrants and their descendants navigate multiple cultures is advised to pick up a copy without delay. And keep the name Amina Gautier on your radar; I suspect we will be reading many more impressive stories and novels from her in the coming years.
One of the most encouraging developments in contemporary literature is the increased attention being paid to Afro-Caribbean writers. Writers such as Julia Alvarez (Dominican Republic), Edwidge Danticat (Haiti), Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua), Esmeralda Santiago (Puerto Rico), and Tiphanie Yanique (Virgin Islands) are acclaimed for their distinctive contributions to this literature of both a place and a way of being. Amina Gautier now stakes her claim to join this esteemed group of writers.
Gautier, who is of African-American and Puerto Rican descent and who understands both cultures intimately, has published more than 75 stories in some of the country’s most prestigious literary journals. She won the 2011 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, leading to the publication of her first collection, At-Risk, in 2012. That volume probed the lives of African-Americans in Brooklyn with empathy and passion.
...
In these eleven finely wrought stories, the characters face questions of identity raised by family members and society but most often by their own divided hearts and minds. They struggle with remaining authentically Puerto Rican while embracing the idea of being an American. Does that require frequent trips back to the island, having a wide circle of PR friends, speaking Spanish (how much?), attending cultural events and waving the flag literally or figuratively? Who decides? How can one be comfortable in his or her own skin when dealing with matters of nationality, culture, race, ethnicity, and language? And these complexities are not simplified by the fact that Puerto Ricans are American citizens.
... [discussion of several stories]
Now We Will Be Happy is as good a collection of stories as I have read in the past year or two. These are powerful, haunting stories that will have you wondering how the characters are doing weeks after you’ve finished reading it. Anyone interested in how immigrants and their descendants navigate multiple cultures is advised to pick up a copy without delay. And keep the name Amina Gautier on your radar; I suspect we will be reading many more impressive stories and novels from her in the coming years.
March 28, 2015
Whenever I pick up a slim volume of short stories that I this good, I try to read slowly and with a bit of quiet time between each story. However, I found I couldn't put this one down, especially once I realized there was some overlap amongst them. Excellent writing from many points of view!
October 20, 2014
How I missed Amina Gautier and her generous stories I do not know. But I have them now. And what stories they are! In her new collection, "Now We Will Be Happy," they bleed into each other to reveal ties that bind families and cultures — from Puerto Rico to Philadelphia to Brooklyn — with food, music, and fragile love. In "Aguanile," a woman reconnects with her estranged grandfather through Salsa songs, their rhythms rendered by Gautier in ways worthy of Jimmy Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues." In the title story, Yauba, a young aspiring chef, has an affair with a married woman — a love so achingly pure I had trouble believing it. But, in the end, I did. "Muñeca" unmasks a darker kind of love, crippled by memories of child abuse — a remarkably incisive story in which Gautier takes the notion of masculinity and wears it inside out like an ill-fitting shirt. And to an immigrant kid, like me, "Only Son" was a real gift, laying bare the burdens of tradition, otherness, the perpetual in-betweenness of being more than one thing. I can go on, but there is only one way to enter the intimate space of these stories: go out — no, run out! — and get "Now We Will Be Happy."
*This was a Goodreads giveaway.
*This was a Goodreads giveaway.
September 13, 2014
This was a free copy from goodreads, a book which had received an award, one which highlighted the immigrant experience and unique culture. High praise, high expectation or at least a reading in which I would learn or want to tell about some of the short stories. After wading through stories about mean, abusive and/or straying husbands and my final "no thanks" 10 yr. olds experimenting with sex while the father (once again) is drunk in the next room, I gave up on trying to find anything redeeming in these short stories. Should possibly be one star, but author gets an extra thrown in for smooth writing? The only thing unique about this immigrant experience (unless I am to believe the male meanness is a statement) is that Puerto Ricans are US citizens. Am I the only reader who is frustrated by authors who are paid to teach and win awards, but when I read their book or stories, feel as though I have gained nothing from my time?
August 28, 2019
This is a beautiful collection of short stories. Gautier gracefully links the stories through recurrent characters and through themes primarily centered around the fluidity, changeability, and confusion of personal and cultural identity. I especially liked the connections that explored language and identity. Gautier is a captivating writer. I plan on reading more of her work.
Thank you to Leslie Reese for the recommendation! https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Thank you to Leslie Reese for the recommendation! https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
January 1, 2018
I love how different characters from one story come back and get to be the narrator. It gives a greater understanding to who each person is. I also loved how the people’s lives were intertwined, like this book was a community coming to life off the pages. I’m not Puerto Rican, but this brought me back to spending time with the Zayas family who is. Great collection of short stories!
October 22, 2018
I love this book. The writer allows the reader the privilege of stepping into the culture and history of the struggles that individuals experience when leaving home and building a new life someplace while your heart remains forever in your country.
Thank you for writing this book Ms. Gautier
Thank you for writing this book Ms. Gautier
April 6, 2019
I'm genuinely not sure if I got this right: there were definitely some interconnectednesses that I must have missed or flaked out on. The stories that I liked, I really liked. It was an uneven experience.
July 29, 2025
these stories vignettes create a landscape of a lifetime told through different perspectives of one family going through cultural and personal strife—truly illuminating and written in vivid prose that engages and challenges. literary fiction as it should be.
June 16, 2022
Will we?
Some great short stories here.
Some great short stories here.
November 6, 2023
only read a couple of stories
October 3, 2025
I flew through this collection of immersive stories illuminating the Puerto Rico and Brooklyn of its characters with depth and color.
February 15, 2017
For the past two years, I have been living in a predominantly Puerto Rican (and Dominican) neighborhood of North Philly, and I can't imagine encountering a book that tops this one in capturing the sights, smells, tastes (attention to food is tremendously well done in this book, critically!), sounds, and more importantly lives -full of highs and lows- that exist here. Gautier is simply masterful at her craft, and this read as a top-level exploration, however brief they may be, into life here and within PR culture in all its beautiful and heartbreaking complexity and fullness. And I especially appreciate that she was willing to go dark and even despairing for some stories, resisting an urge to tell a more optimistic but ultimately incomplete half-truth that would have been more appeasing, yet shallow. Every single character felt true and real, moving through their chapter in organic and subtly meaningful ways.
Perhaps what I appreciated most about this book (beyond my own bias for the ways it speaks to the specific context I live in now and the friends I have here, which is huge) is the admirable restraint it shows all the way through. As far as I can remember , we see no climaxes here - we see what precedes and follows the most catalyzing moments in these characters lives, the build-ups and come-downs. Gautier allows and challenges her readers to imagine to "big moments" as they would unfold, the sexy and exciting ones most writers are salivating to write. I think it's such a beautiful gift of short story to be able to fade to black before that, to hold back and ultimately refuse to go there for us. In doing so, it makes these characters and their lives achingly real, and where a lesser writer may fall into mundane blandness, Gautier offers such subtle, nuanced complexity throughout those moments - which is, of course, how real life is.
Perhaps what I appreciated most about this book (beyond my own bias for the ways it speaks to the specific context I live in now and the friends I have here, which is huge) is the admirable restraint it shows all the way through. As far as I can remember , we see no climaxes here - we see what precedes and follows the most catalyzing moments in these characters lives, the build-ups and come-downs. Gautier allows and challenges her readers to imagine to "big moments" as they would unfold, the sexy and exciting ones most writers are salivating to write. I think it's such a beautiful gift of short story to be able to fade to black before that, to hold back and ultimately refuse to go there for us. In doing so, it makes these characters and their lives achingly real, and where a lesser writer may fall into mundane blandness, Gautier offers such subtle, nuanced complexity throughout those moments - which is, of course, how real life is.
December 10, 2014
I received a promotional copy of this book through the First Reads program.
As a previous reviewer mentioned, Gautier's writing is smooth. She has the necessary skills. Unfortunately, her decisions often fell flat with me - the plots she chose to pursue, the character traits she chose to ascribe, etc.
It's at least as much about family problems as it is about bicultural issues. While this might make the characters more relatable in a way, it also makes them less interesting. There's a certain amount of redundancy, with story after story being about family problems. More variety would have helped. Often, it didn't even matter that they were Puerto Rican. That would have been fine, except I signed up to read a book about Puerto Ricans.
The first story, "Aguanile", is easily my favorite in the collection. "Now We Will Be Happy", "How To Make Flan", and "The Last Hurricane" are also decent stories.
As a previous reviewer mentioned, Gautier's writing is smooth. She has the necessary skills. Unfortunately, her decisions often fell flat with me - the plots she chose to pursue, the character traits she chose to ascribe, etc.
It's at least as much about family problems as it is about bicultural issues. While this might make the characters more relatable in a way, it also makes them less interesting. There's a certain amount of redundancy, with story after story being about family problems. More variety would have helped. Often, it didn't even matter that they were Puerto Rican. That would have been fine, except I signed up to read a book about Puerto Ricans.
The first story, "Aguanile", is easily my favorite in the collection. "Now We Will Be Happy", "How To Make Flan", and "The Last Hurricane" are also decent stories.
September 13, 2015
I really enjoyed the way Gautier connected all the short stories together. It gave me a different outlook on many of the characters because she gave the reader both perspectives of the situation. This was a very insightful and creative way to produce a collection of stories. My outlook on people of Puerto-Rican decent in America was also widened. The way Gautier portrayed her character's struggles as being immigrants or of international decent allowed me to relate and understand their problem. It made me connect not only with the characters, but also real people. This collection is very well written and highly recommended.
October 18, 2014
This is a collection of short, beautiful and delicious stories about Puerto Ricans living in the United States, and how the roots are difficult to forget even when they are hidden up in distant branches of the family tree.
December 18, 2014
The author's concise writing stands out in this collection of heartfelt stories about family dynamics. Some are heartbreaking, some uplifting, all are real. Some have connections with each other. The book won the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction. The volume is slim and I'll read these stories again, they are that good.
The book came to me by way of GR giveaways.
The book came to me by way of GR giveaways.
March 15, 2017
Short story collection of Puerto Ricans living in NY. I enjoyed this collection and I liked how the stories were connected. Very well written. I would have given five stars but I really wished some of the stories would have had a more positive view.
May 16, 2016
Such wonderful and true stories. I'm so proud of and happy for Amina.
December 3, 2020
Wow wow wow. Incredible stories!
April 26, 2017
What a beautiful collage of stories from Latinx Americans. So beautifully narrated. From start to finish this is a page turner, and you truly get lost in the storytelling.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews