This Is Happiness by Niall Williams is set in the imagined village of Faha on the rainy western coast of Ireland. Elderly Noel Crowe, known as Noe, looks back on the months he spent with his grandparents, Ganga and Doady, after he left the seminary at the age of 17 in 1958.
In a place known for cold rains, Easter week arrives sunny and warm in Faha, and it stays that way for weeks. While his grandparents attend Holy Week services, an older man named Christy turns up at their farm. Doady has taken him on as a boarder. He is there to sign up the villagers for electricity. The Rural Electric Scheme is coming to Faha, decades after it had reached the Irish cities. Christy takes on Noe as an unofficial employee. A friendship begins. During their weeks together in the miraculous sunshine, Noe learns Christy’s story.
Williams’s novels are great reading, day or night, in any season.
Maureen Millea Smith is a retired librarian and a Minnesota Book Award winning novelist.
