Are You Happy?: Stories

"Don't let Are You Happy? pass you by: There's not a word out of place in these brilliant Midwestern sketches. They're lonesome, for sure . . . But they're also hilarious." --Charles Arrowsmith, The Washington Post

"These nine startling stories capture the subtleties of feeling--and being made to feel--out of place . . .. Ostlund proves herself a master of the form."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Nine exquisite stories that explore class, desire, identity, and the specter of violence that looms daily over women and the LGBTQ+ community.

An aspiring veterinarian survives a plane crash and starts life over in California. A woman mourns the loss of her childhood friend's innocence and rethinks justice. A queer teacher's sense of safety in the classroom is destroyed. With settings ranging from small-town Minnesota to New Mexico, from bars and bedrooms to a furniture store and a community college, Are You Happy? casts a spotlight on people who try--and often fail--to make peace with their pasts while navigating their present relationships and notions of self. In prose that is evocative and restrained, unpredictable and masterful, Lori Ostlund offers a darkly humorous and compassionate examination of America's preoccupation with loneliness, happiness, guns, and violence.

Author: Lori Ostlund
Publisher: Astra House
Published: 05/06/2025
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.80w x 1.20d
ISBN: 9781662603020


Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 03/15/2025
Publishers Weekly 03/31/2025
Shelf Awareness 05/30/2025

About the Author
Lori Ostlund is the author of Are You Happy? (Astra House, May 2025). Her novel After the Parade (Scribner, 2015) was a B&N Discover pick, a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and a New York Times Editors' Choice. Her first book, The Bigness of the World (UGA, 2009; Scribner, 2016), received the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and the California Book Award for First Fiction. Her stories have appeared in the Best American Short Stories, the PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, ZYZZYVA, and New England Review, among other places. Lori has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Award and was a finalist for the Joyce Carol Oates Prize. She has served as the series editor of the Flannery O'Connor Award since 2022 and is on the board of the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She lives in San Francisco with her wife, the writer Anne Raeff. www.loriostlund.com