The Trouble with Happiness: and Other Stories

Description

A shimmering collection of stories from the author of The Copenhagen Trilogy, translated into English for the first time A newly married woman longs, irrationally, for a silk umbrella; a husband chases away his wife's beloved cat; a betrayed mother impulsively sacks her housekeeper. Underneath the surface of these precisely observed tales of love, marriage and family life in mid-century Copenhagen pulse currents of desire, violence and despair, as women and men dream of escaping their conventional roles and finding freedom and happiness - without ever truly understanding what that might mean.

Tove Ditlevsen was born in 1917 in a working-class neighbourhood in Copenhagen. Her first volume of poetry was published when she was in her early twenties, and was followed by many more books, including her three brilliant volumes of memoir, Childhood (1967), Youth (1967) and Dependency (1971). She married four times and struggled with alcohol and drug abuse throughout her adult life until her death by suicide in 1978.

Splendid short stories... the purity and dazzling insight of Ditlevsen's writing speaks for itself -- Lucy Scholes * The Telegraph * An intense reading experience... so clear is Ditlevsen's eye that it's impossible to tear yourself away from the fates of her characters, however grim -- John Self * Guardian * These short stories show off her astonishingly precise prose -- New Statesman * Ellen Peirson-Hagger * A bracingly bleak selection of stories by the celebrated Danish writer Tove Ditlevsen... These are perfectly judged pieces: authentic, unforced and utterly lucid -- Phil Baker * Sunday Times * Ditlevsen's wonderful and devastatingly bleak short stories simmer with melancholy and despair ... Her prose is clear and spare, pared back to the essential task of describing the struggle for an unwon freedom from domestic despair and unsatisfactory marriages * Daily Mail * The depths of desire and despair are Ditlevsen's subjects and illuminating them is her talent * Monocle * Ditlevsen's writing is crystal clear and vividly, painfully raw * The Paris Review * A terrifying talent * The New York Times * Her writing is incredible, so focused and clear. Not a word that doesn't need to be there -- Tracey Thorn A beautifully written, resilient and relatable chronicle for the marginalized' (praise for Childhood, Youth, Dependency) -- Patti Smith