Happy Days » (Bargain)

What kind of man buys his grave at the age of eighteen and chooses to spend the rest of his life in a rest home at thirty-five? Meet Antoine, the curious hero of Laurent Graff’s Happy Days, an odd young man who somewhat prematurely acquiesces to his terminal destiny. The ultimate fatalist, Antoine decides to play hooky from life at the Happy Days rest home. Despite the pronounced difference in age, he is accepted by the residents and quickly settles into a routine. He leads a peaceful and uneventful life there until the arrival of a dying woman with whom he forms a unique bond and goes on a very special journey. This darkly funny novel — the first of Graff's to be published in English — was awarded the Prix Millepages 2002.

Publishers Weekly

"I wanted to let myself drift gently on the surface of life, floating on my back until I wound up flat on my back six feet under." So reveals the narrator of this curious, rather cold little novella, a winner of the Prix Millepages and Graff's first book to be published in English. At 35, in perfect health, Antoine decides to spend the rest of his life at the Happy Days retirement home. Although he admits to having little taste for life and a certain "tendency to get a head start on the inevitable" (at 18, he bought his cemetery plot), Antoine's premature forfeiture of normal existence is a philosophical experiment, an "attempt to understand what an individual's life is, stripped of all its diversions, seen in the light of its denouement." When Mireille, a new resident with terminal cancer, arrives to spend her final days, Antoine-who has heretofore shuffled along, attending physical therapy, participating in group outings, befriending eccentric aging residents and occasionally sleeping with nurses-has his chance "to understand the extinction of life." Mireille accepts his attentions calmly, as long as he grants her final wish to visit the seashore. The two sneak away, and their journey sparks a mix of tenderness and frustration in both. Graff's static and articulate but inexplicable hero will inspire primarily the latter emotion in readers, with flashes of the former; moments of gorgeous prose leaven a sharp, dark and very French quasi-comedy about a man whose life revolves around death. (Feb.) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.