“Nolan is a skillful satirist, and one whose aim is extensive, wickedly funny and true. [ . . . ] In this cautionary parable, tomorrow’s climate emergencies, gonzo pharmaceuticals and fractured America feel an awfully lot like today’s. Despite finding a whole world of bad out there, Nolan leaves her readers, in the end, feeling maybe just a little bit happy.”
—Rien Fertel, New Orleans Times-Picayune/Louisiana Advocate
“Nolan has accomplished an impressive feat, writing a novel with a clear eye toward the horrors that await us in the near future, but with the readability of a less weighty story. Some of this comes from the tight, well-paced plot, and some of it comes from careful wordsmithing, like the description of a polluted Louisiana sky as a ‘psycho Easter palette.’ I cannot recall the last work of climate fiction that made the crisis feel quite so imminent as Happy Bad.”
—Michael Thomas Gaffney, Southern Review of Books
“Happy Bad . . . feels thoroughly contemporary while also grappling with countless Big Ideas. It’s sneaky like that . . . The near future it depicts is thoroughly unsettling, but Nolan leaves space within it for notes of grace.”
—Tobias Carroll, On The Seawall
“Happy Bad confronts a raised fistful of the most urgent and existential issues of our hour, presenting by force of Nolan’s expansive imagination one detailed and layered vector of possible futures—the one perhaps most likely given the current inattention and inaction on climate. Yet for all of the frequently stunning political insights Nolan offers up on nearly every page, the shining star of this exciting and entertaining work of climate fiction is the writing itself.”
—Frances Madeson, Deceleration
“While the subject matter is as serious as can be, Nolan leavens the novel with gallows humor . . . The darkness of this excellent novel is amplified by how terrifyingly plausible it all is. A self-assured debut that is also a warning.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“This glimpse into a terrifyingly plausible future smuggles tenderness amid the horrors.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Buckle up and get ready for a ride. Nolan is wickedly hilarious and is bold and uncompromising in presenting how urgent we need to act on the climate.”
—Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful
“Impressive . . . Nolan weaves together apocalyptic worldbuilding, flashbacks to Beatrice’s own adolescence, and backwater jailhouse monotony reminiscent of Ottessa Moshfegh’s Eileen before shifting into another classic genre: road novel.”
—Steven Melendez, Antigravity Magazine
“Beatrice’s voice-wry, tender, unflinching-lights the dark. For readers who like road narratives with heart and gallows humor; I couldn’t look away.”
—Victoria Wood, BiblioLifestyle
“An exhilarating, dynamic, addictive debut, Delaney Nolan’s Happy Bad is a hell of a book.”
—Jami Attenberg, author of A Reason to See You Again
“Delaney Nolan’s breathtaking, sharply crafted debut announces the arrival of an important new writer. The characters who populate these pages are unforgettable. Happy Bad will stand the test of time, but it’s also exactly the kind of book we need in our troubled times.”
—Jamel Brinkley, author of A Lucky Man and Witness
“Happy Bad shows the too-near future of our nightmares: climate disastrous, opportunities few, food altered, brains manipulated. But this book also gives us the best we can dream of: people who look out for each other, communities who take care. Delaney Nolan has written a brutal, joyful, surprising, and gorgeous novel of human contradictions. It’s a stunner.”
—Julia Phillips, author of Bear and Disappearing Earth
“This is a preternaturally good novel by a writer who can see the future. Not the ‘thing that will happen if we don’t change course’ but the future that has already crept up on us—the slow apocalypse, the rising water, the burned-out grid. In addition to being a pitch-perfect description of the consequences of capital’s love affair with oil, Happy Bad is a riotously well-written, weirdly fun nail-biter of a story—and a poignant defense of human life, however grimy the circumstances.”
—Lydia Kiesling, author of Mobility
“What a writer Delaney Nolan is. Every sentence of Happy Bad hums electric. Nolan has written an all-too-real future, hot and drug-addled, and every page will surprise you, delight you, devastate you. It is rare to find a book at once as imaginative and true, as horrifying and hopeful, as this brilliant debut. A major talent, Nolan doesn’t shy away from America’s biggest problems; she takes them on with wit, humor, and compassion.”
—Matthew Salesses, author of The Sense of Wonder
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