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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Aug 2023, 400 pages
Paperback:
May 7, 2024, 416 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Lisa Ahima
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When a father goes missing, his family's desperate search leads them to question everything they know about him and one another in this thrilling page-turner, a deeply moving portrait of a family in crisis from the award-winning author of Miracle Creek.
"We didn't call the police right away." Those are the electric first words of this extraordinary novel about a biracial Korean American family in Virginia whose lives are upended when their beloved father and husband goes missing.
Mia, the irreverent, hyperanalytical twenty-year-old daughter, has an explanation for everything—which is why she isn't initially concerned when her father and younger brother Eugene don't return from a walk in a nearby park. They must have lost their phone. Or stopped for an errand somewhere. But by the time Mia's brother runs through the front door bloody and alone, it becomes clear that the father in this tight-knit family is missing and the only witness is Eugene, who has the rare genetic condition Angelman syndrome and cannot speak.
What follows is both a ticking-clock investigation into the whereabouts of a father and an emotionally rich portrait of a family whose most personal secrets just may be at the heart of his disappearance. Full of shocking twists and fascinating questions of love, language, and human connection, Happiness Falls is a mystery, a family drama, and a novel of profound philosophical inquiry. With all the powerful storytelling she brought to her award-winning debut, Miracle Creek, Angie Kim turns the missing-person story into something wholly original, creating an indelible tale of a family who must go to remarkable lengths to truly understand one another.
One
Locke, Bach, and K-pop
We didn't call the police right away. Later, I would blame myself, wonder if things might have turned out differently if I hadn't shrugged it off, insisting Dad wasn't missing missing but just delayed, probably still in the woods looking for Eugene, thinking he'd run off somewhere. Mom says it wasn't my fault, that I was merely being optimistic, but I know better. I don't believe in optimism. I believe there's a fine line (if any) between optimism and willful idiocy, so I try to avoid optimism altogether, lest I fall over the line mistakenly.
My twin brother, John, keeps trying to make me feel better, too, saying we couldn't have known something was wrong because it was such a typical morning, which is an asinine thing to say because why would you assume things can't go wrong simply because they haven't yet? Life isn't geometry; terrible, life-changing moments don't happen predictably, at the bottom of a linear slope. Tragedies and accidents are ...
Within all of Kim's wonderful writing, I was still left so curious about Eugene's personhood outside the context of his disability and familial relationships. Most of the characterization we get of Eugene is tied to his lack of speech, but he feels like such a core part of the novel that I wanted more of him. That said, Happiness Falls is not only a great suspense novel where every page pulls you toward the edge of a horrific cliffhanger, it is also a novel that confronts you. It alerts you to the possibility of biases you might harbor in your own life...continued
Full Review
(542 words)
(Reviewed by Lisa Ahima).
In Angie Kim's Happiness Falls, Eugene is diagnosed with Angelman syndrome, or AS, a neuro-genetic disorder caused by a chromosome-15 gene deletion on the maternal side. Most people with AS have limited speech and motor abilities. It is important to distinguish Angelman syndrome and other conditions that involve learning disabilities from anxiety-related speech conditions such as selective mutism. Some neurotypical people may believe non-speaking people are lacking in the understanding necessary for communication in general, when in fact their communication needs are simply not served by speech, as is the case for Eugene. The See Us, Hear Us campaign discusses how this attitude harms people in detail through a series of documentaries. ...
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