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Fuck Happiness
There is a non-corporeal parasite in your brain. It latches onto your thoughts, wriggles into the ears of passersby, and gestates in their minds. Any coherent idea is a new disease, so you weave small bytes of information together in non-sequitur patterns, creating data strain vaccines. You splice the data strains into VHS tapes from the local rental store. But the entire world is already infected and the only antibody with any hope of destroying the disease is your misery. You know what you must Befriend the Robitussin vulture. Join its cult. Fall in love with a pock-faced Toyota Prius. Shit your pants in front of your neighbor Mrs. Hendrick. Give birth to a daycare facility. Exude Schauss pink purity foam from every pore in your body. Save the world, one puddle of purity foam at a time.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 25, 2019
About the author
Kirk Jones
32 books105 followersKirk Jones (k3rk Dʒoʊnz): 1. English Director of Nanny McPhee 2. "Sticky Fingaz," rap artist and actor who played Blade for the television series 3. Canadian who survived a dive over Niagara Falls . . . only to return and pass upon his second attempt. 4. Boring white author of Uncle Sam's Carnival of Copulating Inanimals (Eraserhead Press, 2010), Journey to Abortosphere (Rooster Republic, 2014), and Die Empty (Atlatl, 2017) who often gets mistaken for the other, arguably more notable, Kirk Jones fellows. 5. Also not Kirk Byron Jones.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
March 26, 2019
”That is not my penis!” you shout
reading a book written in second person is jarring enough (heyyy, i’m not doing that!) reading a bizarro book written in second person even more so (heyyy, i’m NOT doing THAT, nor would i WANT TO!) reading a bizarro book written in second person where the “you” has different genitals than you* do even MORE so (heyyy, i’m NOT doing THAT, nor would i WANT TO, nor COULD I EVEN, biologically) reading a bizarro book written in second person where the “you” has different genitals than you** do and ALSO features a character with your actual name might just send you to the funny farm, especially if the character with your actual name has a giant maggot attached to her head and has become attached to it in both the literal and figurative senses:
but then, THEN, the YOU who is ME sees, on the author’s own review of this book, a comparison between his two most recent works:
and it's as though the scales have fallen fromyour MY eyes: i DO have a penis, i DO hate my ex-wife, although we still do things together with my penis, i DO poop out magical aromatic foam that is occasionally also a daycare, i AM friends with a vomiting vulture, and my boss IS a fly. i am also a little girl with a maggot on my head who loves peanut butter and jelly.
THIS SHIT IS REAL!
if your name is not karen (or tommy or beth or gary or ghost bob, etc), you may still sometimes feel like someone has been reading your diary.
Things were so much easier when you were just jerking off in the dark after scotch taping clips from VHS tapes together.
do you feel seen? well, you are. we all are. tang's making a comeback, jiffy peanut butter has always been here and it's all gonna be okay. promise.
* the you that is actually you
** see *
come to my blog!
reading a book written in second person is jarring enough (heyyy, i’m not doing that!) reading a bizarro book written in second person even more so (heyyy, i’m NOT doing THAT, nor would i WANT TO!) reading a bizarro book written in second person where the “you” has different genitals than you* do even MORE so (heyyy, i’m NOT doing THAT, nor would i WANT TO, nor COULD I EVEN, biologically) reading a bizarro book written in second person where the “you” has different genitals than you** do and ALSO features a character with your actual name might just send you to the funny farm, especially if the character with your actual name has a giant maggot attached to her head and has become attached to it in both the literal and figurative senses:
Karen stands in front of the dolly dream house.
“Come on, honey.” You inch toward her, noting the faint throbbing at the center of her head. “Karen?”
“I made a new friend,” she says. “It kind of hurts.”
You spin her around. A fist-sized maggot writhes at the side of her head. You tug at it.
“Can it come home with us?” she asks.
You pull at it again. “Guess it’s going to have to.”
“It’s going to eat your brain.” Tommy slaps the larva. It plants itself firmly on Karen’s head and continues writhing.
“It is a she,” Karen says. “And she’s got a name.”
You crouch down and look at it closely. “What is its name, honey?”
“Beth.” Karen strokes the maggot and smiles. “Like Mommy.”
but then, THEN, the YOU who is ME sees, on the author’s own review of this book, a comparison between his two most recent works:
Die Empty was a foray into personal delusion, and navigating that thin line between madness and surreality to leave the reader guessing.
Fuck Happiness: there’s no question the shit that is happening is REAL.
and it's as though the scales have fallen from
THIS SHIT IS REAL!
if your name is not karen (or tommy or beth or gary or ghost bob, etc), you may still sometimes feel like someone has been reading your diary.
Things were so much easier when you were just jerking off in the dark after scotch taping clips from VHS tapes together.
do you feel seen? well, you are. we all are. tang's making a comeback, jiffy peanut butter has always been here and it's all gonna be okay. promise.
* the you that is actually you
** see *
come to my blog!
Read
January 21, 2019As always, no star rating, but I like to chat about all the shit that surrounds each book. Here goes.
I had just finished writing Die Empty and my PhD, and had promised myself I’d take a break from writing. Just a small one.
But every time I take a break, I get anxious. I worry something is going to fuck up, and in trying to find out what that something is . . . I usually fuck something up. Sometimes royally. Maybe a friendship. Maybe a professional relationship. Maybe pissing my wife off, convincing myself I’m dying (a personal favorite), or burning bridges with good people.
So I had to keep writing to keep my mind occupied.
Fuck Happiness became my therapy, but damn it, I wanted it to be a “fun book” that I’d resolved to write between the time-consuming books like Die Empty.
I found out pretty quickly that Die Empty had changed me though. I tried to revert back to my old approach-no outline, just letting the book take me wherever-but around the dark factory setting the book went off the fucking rails for about twenty pages.
Those pages never made it into the book.
Fuck factories. I’d done a goddamned factory book. I’d done the working-class critique—cut my teeth on it, in fact—in Uncle Sam.
I stripped the pages and the agenda from the book. I didn’t want the book to say anything. I just wanted to tell a story.
But my approach to writing with Die Empty remained. I added an outline. I started researching elements of the text. I started reading books that were similar for insights.
Though my approach was the same, in many ways, Fuck Happiness is the inverse of Die Empty.
Die Empty was my attempt at “non-genre,” a designator I still find pretentious. In the toy block-like landscape that makes up genre, everything fits into one of the goddamned holes in the shape sorting box. Non-genre purports to be this little prick block that doesn’t fit in any of the holes, rising above only in its pretension. But that’s where Die Empty fit in terms of Amazon categories, so there I put it.
Fuck Happiness is a return to the surreal, hearkening back to elements of Uncle Sam of Abortosphere, but with a level of clarity and focus I never had back in my early years as a writer.
Die Empty was middle class disillusionment. (Everyone should try it. It is a lovely flavor of misery that you’re not supposed to talk about if you come from a background of relative poverty because it is a signifier of economic privilege).
Fuck Happiness is working class or working poor disillusionment. It is where I spent 2001-2006 or so, barely scraping by working retail and part time in writing centers, bumming money off my parents to make sure the bills were paid. Calling into work sick to drink and dream about writing instead of actually doing it. Just spinning wheels and wondering why I’m not moving forward.
Die Empty was a foray into personal delusion, and navigating that thin line between madness and surreality to leave the reader guessing.
Fuck Happiness: there’s no question the shit that is happening is REAL.
Die Empty was my departure from bizarro and the surreal.
Fuck Happiness is my love letter to bizarro and the surreal. It is my best foot forward in the genre. It is my, “this is what I learned from the genre that took me under its wing. This is my potential in the genre after finally diving in and learning the true parameters of the genre” book.
It’s still a gateway bizarro book though. I don’t know if I’ll ever dive all the way in, but I’m glad to dip my feet once in a while, and I’m glad the occupants are welcoming.
The one similarity the two books share is that it is all happening to you.
So what is it all about?
You’re convinced the world is being overrun by a thought parasite. The parasite travels from host to host via communication, but you have a vaccine: For readers, non-sequitur texts, ransom-note passages cut from unrelated sources, strung together to cleanse the mind. For viewers and listeners, short VHS clips spliced together like a nonsensical quilt. You’ve been patching them together on cult classics from the local rental store.
And it works.
And nobody knows about it except you and Giga Video Gary, the kid across the road who runs the rental store.
It’s also about dark factory ghost sex.
It’s about the car with a green lace bra that stalks you in the Super Center parking lot. You suspect there may be breasts under that bra, but you’re too shy to find out.
It is about finding salvation by cultivating a prolapsed anus and using Jiffy Peanut Butter and Tang as your litmus test for the world’s return to balance.
It is about you saving the world at your expense, one disappointment at a time.
I had just finished writing Die Empty and my PhD, and had promised myself I’d take a break from writing. Just a small one.
But every time I take a break, I get anxious. I worry something is going to fuck up, and in trying to find out what that something is . . . I usually fuck something up. Sometimes royally. Maybe a friendship. Maybe a professional relationship. Maybe pissing my wife off, convincing myself I’m dying (a personal favorite), or burning bridges with good people.
So I had to keep writing to keep my mind occupied.
Fuck Happiness became my therapy, but damn it, I wanted it to be a “fun book” that I’d resolved to write between the time-consuming books like Die Empty.
I found out pretty quickly that Die Empty had changed me though. I tried to revert back to my old approach-no outline, just letting the book take me wherever-but around the dark factory setting the book went off the fucking rails for about twenty pages.
Those pages never made it into the book.
Fuck factories. I’d done a goddamned factory book. I’d done the working-class critique—cut my teeth on it, in fact—in Uncle Sam.
I stripped the pages and the agenda from the book. I didn’t want the book to say anything. I just wanted to tell a story.
But my approach to writing with Die Empty remained. I added an outline. I started researching elements of the text. I started reading books that were similar for insights.
Though my approach was the same, in many ways, Fuck Happiness is the inverse of Die Empty.
Die Empty was my attempt at “non-genre,” a designator I still find pretentious. In the toy block-like landscape that makes up genre, everything fits into one of the goddamned holes in the shape sorting box. Non-genre purports to be this little prick block that doesn’t fit in any of the holes, rising above only in its pretension. But that’s where Die Empty fit in terms of Amazon categories, so there I put it.
Fuck Happiness is a return to the surreal, hearkening back to elements of Uncle Sam of Abortosphere, but with a level of clarity and focus I never had back in my early years as a writer.
Die Empty was middle class disillusionment. (Everyone should try it. It is a lovely flavor of misery that you’re not supposed to talk about if you come from a background of relative poverty because it is a signifier of economic privilege).
Fuck Happiness is working class or working poor disillusionment. It is where I spent 2001-2006 or so, barely scraping by working retail and part time in writing centers, bumming money off my parents to make sure the bills were paid. Calling into work sick to drink and dream about writing instead of actually doing it. Just spinning wheels and wondering why I’m not moving forward.
Die Empty was a foray into personal delusion, and navigating that thin line between madness and surreality to leave the reader guessing.
Fuck Happiness: there’s no question the shit that is happening is REAL.
Die Empty was my departure from bizarro and the surreal.
Fuck Happiness is my love letter to bizarro and the surreal. It is my best foot forward in the genre. It is my, “this is what I learned from the genre that took me under its wing. This is my potential in the genre after finally diving in and learning the true parameters of the genre” book.
It’s still a gateway bizarro book though. I don’t know if I’ll ever dive all the way in, but I’m glad to dip my feet once in a while, and I’m glad the occupants are welcoming.
The one similarity the two books share is that it is all happening to you.
So what is it all about?
You’re convinced the world is being overrun by a thought parasite. The parasite travels from host to host via communication, but you have a vaccine: For readers, non-sequitur texts, ransom-note passages cut from unrelated sources, strung together to cleanse the mind. For viewers and listeners, short VHS clips spliced together like a nonsensical quilt. You’ve been patching them together on cult classics from the local rental store.
And it works.
And nobody knows about it except you and Giga Video Gary, the kid across the road who runs the rental store.
It’s also about dark factory ghost sex.
It’s about the car with a green lace bra that stalks you in the Super Center parking lot. You suspect there may be breasts under that bra, but you’re too shy to find out.
It is about finding salvation by cultivating a prolapsed anus and using Jiffy Peanut Butter and Tang as your litmus test for the world’s return to balance.
It is about you saving the world at your expense, one disappointment at a time.
May 15, 2019
I just finished reading FUCK HAPPINESS. I'm sad, depressed, inspired and confused. The second person POV demands a lot from me. It has drained my and compromised my sense of self. The book just kinda f@#ked with me.
FUCK HAPPINESS starts out strong. The 2nd person point of view is once again employed and pulls you right into the story. The chracter development and set up for the plot are engaging. The book started to lose me as things got weird.
I don't think that's three fault f the story. I think that's the fault of me, the reader. I want able to make the more literary jumps. The weirder things got the less I was able to connect the dots and draw the parallels. By the end, I was disconnected
Still, FUCK HAPPINESS touched nerves and messed with the feels. I didn't quite grasp it all and yet, through my own life experience, I understood everything. A better read person will be able to connect better with the more literary tones than I was. Still love Kirk Jones style and I look forward to reading more in the future.
FUCK HAPPINESS starts out strong. The 2nd person point of view is once again employed and pulls you right into the story. The chracter development and set up for the plot are engaging. The book started to lose me as things got weird.
I don't think that's three fault f the story. I think that's the fault of me, the reader. I want able to make the more literary jumps. The weirder things got the less I was able to connect the dots and draw the parallels. By the end, I was disconnected
Still, FUCK HAPPINESS touched nerves and messed with the feels. I didn't quite grasp it all and yet, through my own life experience, I understood everything. A better read person will be able to connect better with the more literary tones than I was. Still love Kirk Jones style and I look forward to reading more in the future.
March 30, 2026
"You can end it. All you have to do is be happy."
I gotta stop going into books blind. What the hell was this? It's nowhere I thought it would be.
But... I liked it! It was weird, it's was crazy, it was right up my alley!
Only the second-person narration didn't work. It should have been written in the first-person. I never felt like the MC I allegedly was.
Update: I never leave spoiler reviews on GR but for once:
📣 SPOILER ALERT 📣
All the silliness with the foam, etc. should not diminish the impactful message on fatherhood. Milton does the ultimate and hardest act a father can do for his children: disappear from their lives and memories in order to save them from the worst. This part of the story stuck with me all night... 👏
I gotta stop going into books blind. What the hell was this? It's nowhere I thought it would be.
But... I liked it! It was weird, it's was crazy, it was right up my alley!
Only the second-person narration didn't work. It should have been written in the first-person. I never felt like the MC I allegedly was.
Update: I never leave spoiler reviews on GR but for once:
📣 SPOILER ALERT 📣
All the silliness with the foam, etc. should not diminish the impactful message on fatherhood. Milton does the ultimate and hardest act a father can do for his children: disappear from their lives and memories in order to save them from the worst. This part of the story stuck with me all night... 👏
July 2, 2019
A funny little book about love and loss, lathered in pink foam, and getting ghosted in the automotive department. References to the products I grew up with and using the second person narrative pulled me into the twisted tale immediately, my brain bubbling over with nostalgia as my body ached from the championship days at Polk High. Loved all the references, the sharp dialogue, and the dark imagery that really brought the story home for me.
Namaste and read this fucking book.
Namaste and read this fucking book.
March 24, 2019
This right here is everything I love about bizarro. It's surreal, absurd, gross, and funny. That alone would be enough to make me a happy reader, but it's also surprisingly heartfelt and sweet, which makes it really exceptional. The writing itself is fantastic as well! No matter how weird it gets, Jones never forgets that there's an actual story to tell, and this is a story perfect for longtime bizarro fans, but also would make a great introduction to the genre for newcomers!
April 24, 2019
Fuck Happiness is a well-crafted good time. I laughed out loud. I underlined innocuous sentences (“Look Mom, I made a beard!”) completely corrupted by context. I even gasped once or twice, which for me is the hallmark of a good bizarro story.
I especially appreciated all the twists and tricks of storytelling only possible because the voice is so casual and unpretentious, even while, at times, handling subject matter that in lesser hands could have been unbearably pretentious.
Five stars; I could read books like this until the bloated cows come home.
I especially appreciated all the twists and tricks of storytelling only possible because the voice is so casual and unpretentious, even while, at times, handling subject matter that in lesser hands could have been unbearably pretentious.
Five stars; I could read books like this until the bloated cows come home.
May 20, 2019
Interesting
I’m not sure I get what happened but it was definitely different. Lots of pooping.. lots of Bizzare stuff happening but it was a fun read. I will have to read it again, but it’s worth it for something different yet also so familiar...
I’m not sure I get what happened but it was definitely different. Lots of pooping.. lots of Bizzare stuff happening but it was a fun read. I will have to read it again, but it’s worth it for something different yet also so familiar...
April 1, 2019
I felt like Kirk had an opportunity to write a way more focused story with a more serious tone. There were genuine moments of promise, minus the overt silliness of Super Center employees shitting the supernatural equivalent of bubble bath and a cough syrup-swilling vulture. Although I did enjoy it and the silly parts were mostly funny, the story's silliness never got out of its own way.
May 29, 2020
Fuckin love this book. I also love just about any book written in second person. It's a skill and Kirk Jones pulls it off in a way that blew my brain balls. It's fucking funny as shit. Yes, it's weird. But it never feels weird in an exploitive way. Turn on the fucking news, THAT shit it weird. And I think this is sort of a response to the shaky ground we all walk in this reality. This is the first KJ book I've read and I'll totally read more, happily (happiness fucking aside). But as much as this book is funny, it's also poignant at times, and very sad at others. There's something happening in the narrative that doesn't become clear until the very end. Some of it feels like an acid-trip, depressive version of Back to the Future, some of it feels like Stephen King's The Regulators. I'll read this book again, gladly. If you haven't read it yet, do yourself a favor and do so. Now. Before it's too late and you forget. HURRY! GO BUY IT, DAMMIT!
April 6, 2026
This book made me feel high
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