I'd So Rather Be Reading: Book Spotlight: I Don't Have a Happy Place: Cheerful Stories of Despondency and Gloom by Kim Korson

I DON’T HAVE A HAPPY PLACE

Cheerful Stories of Despondency and Gloom

“Korson’s preoccupations—checking crime blotters for neighborhood stats, being certain that her first child would come out crazy, avoiding chitchat at parties—may keep her firmly in her cranky cave but will strike a funny bone in readers.”

— Publishers Weekly

About I DON’T HAVE A HAPPY PLACE

When a trip to the therapist ends with the question “Can’t Kim be happy?” Kim Korson responds the way any normal person would - she makes fun of it. Because really, does everyone have to be happy?

Aside from her father wearing makeup and her mother not feeling well (a lot), Kim Korson’s 1970s suburban upbringing was typical. Sometimes she wished her brother were an arsonist just so she’d have a valid excuse to be unhappy. And, when life moves along pretty decently - she breaks into show business, gets engaged in the secluded jungles of Mexico, and moves her family from Brooklyn to dreamy rural Vermont - the real despondency sets in. Its a skill to find something wrong in just about every situation, but Kim has an exquisite talent for negativity. It is only after half a lifetime of finding kernels of unhappiness where others find joy that she begins to wonder if she is even capable of experiencing happiness.

In I Don’t Have a Happy Place, Kim Korson untangles what it means to be a true malcontent. Rife with evocative and nostalgic observations, unapologetic racism, and razor-sharp wit, I Don’t Have a Happy Place is told in humorous, autobiographical stories. This fresh-yet-dark voice is sure to make you laugh, nod your head in recognition, and ultimately understand what it truly means to be unhappy. Always.

About KIM KORSON

Kim Korson’s writing has appeared in O, The Oprah Magazine and Moomah the Magazine. She is originally from Montreal, Canada, has lived in Brooklyn, NY and now lives in Southern Vermont with her husband and two kids. She doesn’t get out much but finds time to write often, hence the birth of her fantastic collection of personal essays, I Don’t Have a Happy Place: Cheerful Stories of Despondency and Gloom (Gallery Books/Simon & Schuester; original trade paperback; $16.00), to be published on April 4, 2015.