Something Like Happy

The characters in Burnside's stories are all struggling in different ways: caught in difficult marriages, lost in aimless lives, locked out of their own memories. In the title story, a young woman observes her sister's relationship with a local thug, balanced against her own feelings about love, family and her future. As with much of Burnside's previous work, the stories have a mythical tone to them: snow and summer heat serve not just as atmosphere, but as symbolic representations with a sense of timelessness.

Each story is cleverly built, the reader's sense of dread increasing as the plots climbs to their intense, ambivalent conclusions. The women are particularly well observed, and Burnside does not shy away from leaning in close to his characters' lives to observe every gritty detail.

Despite what the title may suggest, Burnside's fiction is rarely upbeat, and readers looking for clear-cut happy endings will be disappointed. However, there is much to appreciate in Something Like Happy. Burnside's prose is clean and evocative, the stories are gripping, and the characters are beautifully and brutally observed. For those who do not mind their fiction a little gloomy, this is one of the finest story collections of the year.