Happiness Bastard

by Kirby Doyle

Happiness Bastard (Essex House, 1968; a novel). (Happiness Bastard, like Kerouac's On the Road, was produced on one continuous scroll of paper run through a typewriter, and the sole copy is in the Kirby Doyle Archive in the possession of Tisa Walden which also includes the unpublished Opus Pre American Ode, and other handwritten papers.

Genres: Fiction

206 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1968

Reviews

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

So back two years ago, this would've been in pre=covid days when crowds didn't give you the absolute heeby=jeebies, probably October, I attended the last library sale. For now. At the time I had 480 books on my gr=to-read. I bought 20. Nice round number of 500. I can't say how many of those twenty I've read but what I did say to myself is that I would read each new book (after that 500) as I acquired them. And for two years I've done pretty damn well with that particular reading gaol.

Amazingly I now have a mere 467 books on the to=read. And the most recently added six unread (you know about that little widget on your gr=page?), well, those I have some lame ass reason for not having read yet. One I've already read (the Tough Poets Edition of Ice Never F (and Milkbottle H should be there too, but one reason or another I've not gotten around to adding that yet)). A second is a translation from the Norwegian into German ; and it will be some time yet I'm sure till my brain is up for that. Three are FAT bricks which will have their own time, no rush. And the sixth is another from Tough Poets Press (starting it today? this week?). Something I received shortly after having begun M&D and no I was not about to interrupt that reading (again!).

So is all this relevant? Well, the book under Review here, Happiness Bastard, is yet another issue from Tough Poets Press. And it would seem that it has been just in the past two years that they have really ramped up their productions. What is it they do? The reissue BURIED novels. I mean REALLY BURIED. Most have typically had gr=scores of like 1::0, with the 1 being TPP. So with my little promise to myself, that I would read books as they came through the door, was it fortunate to have this small press begin to issue exactly the kinds of books I want to read and so, no, if you ask, I had no problem at all picking up that next TPP book soon as it comes through the door. It's a happy circumstance is what I'm saying.

DISSclosure :: My name is in several of these TPP books because I participated in their kickstarter thing. Names of other famous gr'rs are in there too which is such a nice thing to see.

[George]

Happiness Bastard is a forgotten curio of a novel written by Beat generation poet Kirby Doyle. It's his only novel, not counting the unfinished White Flesh nor the 39-page Angel Faint. There's quite a bit going on in this slim volume, from the satire of Old English and a one-act play to screeds about politics and art and scenes of NY night-wandering that are as crazy as they are grotesque, a couple of them entering the realms of the surreal, like when the protagonist Tully McSwine drinks from a bottle with a broken neck and ends up cutting off his lips, which start whispering to him from the sidewalk.

After being rejected a handful of times, the novel only found a home with a press that specialized in soft-core pornography, reminding me of how Nabokov had similar troubles and a similar solution with Lolita, although these novels are nothing alike and, not so with the latter, the patient reader could find some scenes to tickle their pickle about halfway through Happiness Bastard, depending on one's kinks. So yes, if there's any story at all, it's about McSwine going about the city alongside his semi-girlfriend Dolly, with plenty of booze and drugs and lust. There's a kind of earnest sloppiness to the writing that hits upon impressive and evocative details and anecdotes, as wild and wildly different as an instance of overly visceral cunnilingus and the tragedy of an uncle who was accidentally wronged in his childhood as a prelude to being purposefully wronged by the police.

Overall, this is definitely worth reading and having on the shelf next to the more well-known Beatniks.

[Paul Dembina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not really a fan of the Beat stuff. I read On The Road as part of an evening class and found it incredibly solipsistic and I think this book has the same feel to it. A series of sketches which I suspect are closely based on the author's own experiences and that of his circle of friends. However there were a few moments of incredibly intense prose which I really found impressive.
Not one for me, but hey, we all have different tastes

[Michael Kuehn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Tough Poets Press . . . thank you thank you thank you . . . for reviving this BURIED gem of a novel.

[Mat · Rating 3 out of 5]

I almost gave this four stars. This book is a real trip!
One of the craziest, most confusing and rambling novels I have ever read.
But at the same time, the prose is at times immaculate, so good, that it kept driving me on. A real page-turner, and hilarious at times.

I think this book is a good way to gauge the free-wheeling hedonism of the Beat Generation and the hippies - in fact, it comes across as more hippie than Beat (although I'm pretty sure Kirby Doyle would punch me in the head if he heard me say that!!!).

Why the low rating? Call me old-fashioned, but as much as I love a real mind-fuck book, the 'plot' or storyline of this book was so thin and barely coherent, that I could not call it a 'great book.' It is however very well-written and extremely entertaining. There is never a dull moment!
If this sounds like your bag, then go for it.

[Gabe Cweigenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well then. Like a two hundred page (book? Novel? Prose poem? Memoir? Auto-fiction? Masturbation? Account of Self-abuse?) narrated by Ahab; like a self-obsessed Tarantula day Bob Dylan rant with some sort of (plot? character? Narrative? Intention?); like Norman Mailer’s internal monologues; An Upper-ground man; Humboldt’s Sexual Odyssey... seventy pages to long— at least for me. After 150 pages, Kirby Doyle seems to lose any intention and spiral into digressive, discursive, repetitive logorrhea, loquaciousness, down right annoyance, to be truthful. From page one, What kept me going was to see how long he could hold the style: 156 pages.

A worthwhile book just for Doyle’s capacity to masturbate for so long on so many pages. A God Read, despite my rating.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it here:

https://open.substack.com/pub/tosh/p/...