History & Criticism
![Sabrina Orah Mark - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B002YXI6I4.jpg)
Happily: A Personal History-with Fairy Tales
A beautifully written memoir-in-essays on fairy tales and their surprising relevance to modern life, from a Jewish woman raising Black children in the American South-based on her acclaimed Paris Review column "Happily"
"One of the most inventive, phenomenally executed books I've read in decades."-Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
The literary tradition of the fairy tale has long endured as the vehicle by which we interrogate the laws of reality. These fantastical stories, populated with wolves, kings, and wicked witches, have throughout history served as a template for understanding culture, society, and that muddy terrain we call our collective human psyche. In Happily, Sabrina Orah Mark reimagines the modern fairy tale, turning it inside out and searching it for the wisdom to better understand our contemporary moment in what Mark so incisively calls "this strange American weather."
Set against the backdrop of political upheaval, viral plague, social protest, and climate change, Mark locates the magic in the mundane and illuminates the surreality of life as we know it today. She grapples with a loss of innocence in "Sorry, Peter Pan, We're Over You," when her son decides he would rather dress up as Martin Luther King, Jr., than Peter Pan for Halloween. In "The Evil Stepmother," Mark finds unlikely communion with wicked wives and examines the roots of their bad reputation. And in "Rapunzel, Draft One Thousand," the hunt for a wigmaker in a time of unprecedented civil unrest forces Mark to finally confront her sister's cancer diagnosis and the stories we tell ourselves to get by.
Revelatory, whimsical, and utterly inspired, Happily is a testament to the singularity of Sabrina Orah Mark's voice and the power of the fantastical to reveal essential truths about life, love, and the meaning of family.
"One of the most inventive, phenomenally executed books I've read in decades."-Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
The literary tradition of the fairy tale has long endured as the vehicle by which we interrogate the laws of reality. These fantastical stories, populated with wolves, kings, and wicked witches, have throughout history served as a template for understanding culture, society, and that muddy terrain we call our collective human psyche. In Happily, Sabrina Orah Mark reimagines the modern fairy tale, turning it inside out and searching it for the wisdom to better understand our contemporary moment in what Mark so incisively calls "this strange American weather."
Set against the backdrop of political upheaval, viral plague, social protest, and climate change, Mark locates the magic in the mundane and illuminates the surreality of life as we know it today. She grapples with a loss of innocence in "Sorry, Peter Pan, We're Over You," when her son decides he would rather dress up as Martin Luther King, Jr., than Peter Pan for Halloween. In "The Evil Stepmother," Mark finds unlikely communion with wicked wives and examines the roots of their bad reputation. And in "Rapunzel, Draft One Thousand," the hunt for a wigmaker in a time of unprecedented civil unrest forces Mark to finally confront her sister's cancer diagnosis and the stories we tell ourselves to get by.
Revelatory, whimsical, and utterly inspired, Happily is a testament to the singularity of Sabrina Orah Mark's voice and the power of the fantastical to reveal essential truths about life, love, and the meaning of family.
Editorial Reviews
Chapter 1
Ghost People
My son's teacher pulls me aside to tell me she's concerned about Noah and the Ghost People.
"Ghost People?"
"Yes," she says. She is cheerful, though I suspect the main ingredient of her cheer is dread. "Can you encourage Noah to stop bringing them to school?" She is whispering, and she is smiling. She is a close talker and occasionally calls me "girl," which embarrasses me.
"I don't know these Ghost People."
"You do."
"I don't think so."
"He makes them out of the wood chips he finds on the playground. They're distracting him. He isn't finishing his sentences."
"Okay," I say. "Ghost People."
She smiles wide. One of her front teeth looks more alive than it should be.
✳
As a toddler, Noah always had a superhero in one hand and a superhero in the other.
Like the world was a tightrope and the men were his balance pole. Now he makes his own men. Out of pipe cleaners and twigs and paper and Q-tips and string and Band-Aids, but mostly wood chips. I eavesdrop. With Noah there, the Ghost People seem to speak a mix of cloud and wind. They are rowdy and kind. They comfort him. If Adam looked like anything in the beginning, I suspect it would be these wood chips, the color of dry earth. He, too, would be speaking in a language from a place that doesn't quite exist.
But also I know as Noah gets older the world will make it even more difficult for him to carry these People around.
"For god's sake," says my mother, "let him carry the freaking Ghost People around. Who is he hurting?"
"Maybe himself?" I say.
"Why himself?" she asks. "How himself?"
"They're distracting him," I explain.
"From what?"
"From his sentences."
"Who the hell cares?" says my mother.
✳
In Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the first thing Pinocchio does, once his mouth is carved, is laugh at Geppetto. And the first thing he does once his hands are finished is snatch Geppetto's yellow wig off his head. And the first thing he does once his feet are done is kick Geppetto in the nose, leaving him to feel "more wretched and miserable than he felt in all his life." If what he is making hurts him, why does Geppetto keep carving? Maybe it's because before he even began carving, he knew he would call his wooden son Pinocchio. Maybe because Geppetto understands that sometimes the things we create to protect us, to give us good fortune, need first to thin us into a vulnerability where the only thing that can save us are those things that almost erased us. Where the only thing that can bring us back to ourselves is what brought us to the edge of our being in the first place. Or maybe it's just that Geppetto is lonely.
"What did you...
Ghost People
My son's teacher pulls me aside to tell me she's concerned about Noah and the Ghost People.
"Ghost People?"
"Yes," she says. She is cheerful, though I suspect the main ingredient of her cheer is dread. "Can you encourage Noah to stop bringing them to school?" She is whispering, and she is smiling. She is a close talker and occasionally calls me "girl," which embarrasses me.
"I don't know these Ghost People."
"You do."
"I don't think so."
"He makes them out of the wood chips he finds on the playground. They're distracting him. He isn't finishing his sentences."
"Okay," I say. "Ghost People."
She smiles wide. One of her front teeth looks more alive than it should be.
✳
As a toddler, Noah always had a superhero in one hand and a superhero in the other.
Like the world was a tightrope and the men were his balance pole. Now he makes his own men. Out of pipe cleaners and twigs and paper and Q-tips and string and Band-Aids, but mostly wood chips. I eavesdrop. With Noah there, the Ghost People seem to speak a mix of cloud and wind. They are rowdy and kind. They comfort him. If Adam looked like anything in the beginning, I suspect it would be these wood chips, the color of dry earth. He, too, would be speaking in a language from a place that doesn't quite exist.
But also I know as Noah gets older the world will make it even more difficult for him to carry these People around.
"For god's sake," says my mother, "let him carry the freaking Ghost People around. Who is he hurting?"
"Maybe himself?" I say.
"Why himself?" she asks. "How himself?"
"They're distracting him," I explain.
"From what?"
"From his sentences."
"Who the hell cares?" says my mother.
✳
In Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the first thing Pinocchio does, once his mouth is carved, is laugh at Geppetto. And the first thing he does once his hands are finished is snatch Geppetto's yellow wig off his head. And the first thing he does once his feet are done is kick Geppetto in the nose, leaving him to feel "more wretched and miserable than he felt in all his life." If what he is making hurts him, why does Geppetto keep carving? Maybe it's because before he even began carving, he knew he would call his wooden son Pinocchio. Maybe because Geppetto understands that sometimes the things we create to protect us, to give us good fortune, need first to thin us into a vulnerability where the only thing that can save us are those things that almost erased us. Where the only thing that can bring us back to ourselves is what brought us to the edge of our being in the first place. Or maybe it's just that Geppetto is lonely.
"What did you...
Short Excerpt Teaser
Chapter 1
Ghost People
My son's teacher pulls me aside to tell me she's concerned about Noah and the Ghost People.
"Ghost People?"
"Yes," she says. She is cheerful, though I suspect the main ingredient of her cheer is dread. "Can you encourage Noah to stop bringing them to school?" She is whispering, and she is smiling. She is a close talker and occasionally calls me "girl," which embarrasses me.
"I don't know these Ghost People."
"You do."
"I don't think so."
"He makes them out of the wood chips he finds on the playground. They're distracting him. He isn't finishing his sentences."
"Okay," I say. "Ghost People."
She smiles wide. One of her front teeth looks more alive than it should be.
✳
As a toddler, Noah always had a superhero in one hand and a superhero in the other.
Like the world was a tightrope and the men were his balance pole. Now he makes his own men. Out of pipe cleaners and twigs and paper and Q-tips and string and Band-Aids, but mostly wood chips. I eavesdrop. With Noah there, the Ghost People seem to speak a mix of cloud and wind. They are rowdy and kind. They comfort him. If Adam looked like anything in the beginning, I suspect it would be these wood chips, the color of dry earth. He, too, would be speaking in a language from a place that doesn't quite exist.
But also I know as Noah gets older the world will make it even more difficult for him to carry these People around.
"For god's sake," says my mother, "let him carry the freaking Ghost People around. Who is he hurting?"
"Maybe himself?" I say.
"Why himself?" she asks. "How himself?"
"They're distracting him," I explain.
"From what?"
"From his sentences."
"Who the hell cares?" says my mother.
✳
In Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the first thing Pinocchio does, once his mouth is carved, is laugh at Geppetto. And the first thing he does once his hands are finished is snatch Geppetto's yellow wig off his head. And the first thing he does once his feet are done is kick Geppetto in the nose, leaving him to feel "more wretched and miserable than he felt in all his life." If what he is making hurts him, why does Geppetto keep carving? Maybe it's because before he even began carving, he knew he would call his wooden son Pinocchio. Maybe because Geppetto understands that sometimes the things we create to protect us, to give us good fortune, need first to thin us into a vulnerability where the only thing that can save us are those things that almost erased us. Where the only thing that can bring us back to ourselves is what brought us to the edge of our being in the first place. Or maybe it's just that Geppetto is lonely.
"What did you do today at school?"
"Nothing," says Noah.
When I empty his lunch bag, I find three Ghost People inside.
In the world of fairy tales, Geppetto is the mother of all mothers. After jail, beatings, poverty, hunger, and crying, all brought on by his spoiled, lying wooden boy, he still-heartsick-looks for his boy everywhere. They finally unite in the belly of a shark. Pinocchio walks and walks toward a "glow" until he reaches Geppetto, lit by the flame of his last candlestick, sitting at a small dining table eating live minnows. He is now little and old and so white he "might have been made of snow or whipped cream." Promising to never leave him again, Pinocchio (only a meter tall) swims out of the shark's mouth, toward the moonlight and the starry sky, with Geppetto on his back. If an old man and a wooden boy ever shared a single birth, it would probably look something like this.
Eli doesn't make Ghost People, but his pockets are always filled with sticks and leaves. If I were to keep everything my boys have ever found and brought home, I could easily have enough for a whole tree. Maybe even a small forest. When the shooting happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018, all I could think about at first was the name of the synagogue. All I could think about was the Tree. I shut the news off fast.
"What happened to the Tree of Life?" asks Noah.
"Nothing," I say. "I think a branch fell."
I haven't yet read my boys Pinocchio, the story of a boy carved from a tree, and I don't tell them about the shooting at the Tree of Life, either. I get an email from our synagogue: "Join Us for Coffee and an Informal Discussion About How We Can Help Our Children Cope With Frightening Situations As Well As Anti-Semitism." I go to the meeting. At the meeting, one mother maps out the Active Shooter Plan she's drawn up with the help of her five-and eight-year-olds.
I say I've told my boys nothing. Some ...
Ghost People
My son's teacher pulls me aside to tell me she's concerned about Noah and the Ghost People.
"Ghost People?"
"Yes," she says. She is cheerful, though I suspect the main ingredient of her cheer is dread. "Can you encourage Noah to stop bringing them to school?" She is whispering, and she is smiling. She is a close talker and occasionally calls me "girl," which embarrasses me.
"I don't know these Ghost People."
"You do."
"I don't think so."
"He makes them out of the wood chips he finds on the playground. They're distracting him. He isn't finishing his sentences."
"Okay," I say. "Ghost People."
She smiles wide. One of her front teeth looks more alive than it should be.
✳
As a toddler, Noah always had a superhero in one hand and a superhero in the other.
Like the world was a tightrope and the men were his balance pole. Now he makes his own men. Out of pipe cleaners and twigs and paper and Q-tips and string and Band-Aids, but mostly wood chips. I eavesdrop. With Noah there, the Ghost People seem to speak a mix of cloud and wind. They are rowdy and kind. They comfort him. If Adam looked like anything in the beginning, I suspect it would be these wood chips, the color of dry earth. He, too, would be speaking in a language from a place that doesn't quite exist.
But also I know as Noah gets older the world will make it even more difficult for him to carry these People around.
"For god's sake," says my mother, "let him carry the freaking Ghost People around. Who is he hurting?"
"Maybe himself?" I say.
"Why himself?" she asks. "How himself?"
"They're distracting him," I explain.
"From what?"
"From his sentences."
"Who the hell cares?" says my mother.
✳
In Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, the first thing Pinocchio does, once his mouth is carved, is laugh at Geppetto. And the first thing he does once his hands are finished is snatch Geppetto's yellow wig off his head. And the first thing he does once his feet are done is kick Geppetto in the nose, leaving him to feel "more wretched and miserable than he felt in all his life." If what he is making hurts him, why does Geppetto keep carving? Maybe it's because before he even began carving, he knew he would call his wooden son Pinocchio. Maybe because Geppetto understands that sometimes the things we create to protect us, to give us good fortune, need first to thin us into a vulnerability where the only thing that can save us are those things that almost erased us. Where the only thing that can bring us back to ourselves is what brought us to the edge of our being in the first place. Or maybe it's just that Geppetto is lonely.
"What did you do today at school?"
"Nothing," says Noah.
When I empty his lunch bag, I find three Ghost People inside.
In the world of fairy tales, Geppetto is the mother of all mothers. After jail, beatings, poverty, hunger, and crying, all brought on by his spoiled, lying wooden boy, he still-heartsick-looks for his boy everywhere. They finally unite in the belly of a shark. Pinocchio walks and walks toward a "glow" until he reaches Geppetto, lit by the flame of his last candlestick, sitting at a small dining table eating live minnows. He is now little and old and so white he "might have been made of snow or whipped cream." Promising to never leave him again, Pinocchio (only a meter tall) swims out of the shark's mouth, toward the moonlight and the starry sky, with Geppetto on his back. If an old man and a wooden boy ever shared a single birth, it would probably look something like this.
Eli doesn't make Ghost People, but his pockets are always filled with sticks and leaves. If I were to keep everything my boys have ever found and brought home, I could easily have enough for a whole tree. Maybe even a small forest. When the shooting happened at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018, all I could think about at first was the name of the synagogue. All I could think about was the Tree. I shut the news off fast.
"What happened to the Tree of Life?" asks Noah.
"Nothing," I say. "I think a branch fell."
I haven't yet read my boys Pinocchio, the story of a boy carved from a tree, and I don't tell them about the shooting at the Tree of Life, either. I get an email from our synagogue: "Join Us for Coffee and an Informal Discussion About How We Can Help Our Children Cope With Frightening Situations As Well As Anti-Semitism." I go to the meeting. At the meeting, one mother maps out the Active Shooter Plan she's drawn up with the help of her five-and eight-year-olds.
I say I've told my boys nothing. Some ...
