Often I Am Happy

When Ellinor addresses her best friend Anna, she does not expect a reply. Anna has been dead for forty years, killed in the same skiing accident that claimed Henning: Ellinors first husband and Annas lover. Ellinor instead tells her that Georg has died Georg who was once Annas, but whom Ellinor came to love in her place, and whom she came to care for, along with Annas two infant sons. Yet with Georgs death Ellinor finds herself able to cut the ties of her assumed life with surprising ease. Returning to the area of Copenhagen where she grew up, away from the adopted comfort of the home she shared with Georg, Ellinor finds herself addressing her own history: her marriage to Henning, their seemingly charmed friendship with the newly-wed Anna and Georg, right back to her own mother's story a story of heartbreaking pride. Because there are some secrets both our own and of others that we can only share with the dead. Secrets that nonetheless shape who we are and who we love. Often I Am Happy by Jens Christian Grndahl is a profoundly moving work of fiction.