Are You Happy Now?, Richard Babcock
Are You Happy Now?, Richard Babcock
List: $14.99 | Sale: $10.50
Club: $7.49

Are You Happy Now?

Author: Richard Babcock

Narrator: Jeff Cummings

Unabridged: 9 hr 43 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download (DRM Protected)

Published: 11/06/2012

Synopsis

John Lincoln is a book editor miserably ensconced at Pistakee, a dinky Chicago publisher. His overwhelming ambition is to flee the bland, over polite Midwest and land in New York—where, he imagines, he’ll work with real writers; brandish success at his skeptical, patrician East Coast parents; and experience again the glories of a city where, with “every block, every step,” he will find something interesting and exciting.What he needs is a hot bestseller, and he finds his vehicle in Amy O’Malley, a recent University of Chicago grad who’s worked on the school’s famous sex survey. With Lincoln’s prodding and guidance, Amy writes a sex-filled novel that draws on her experience. Her book indeed opens doors for Lincoln—but not in the way he imagined. Meanwhile, a professor of happiness studies at a local college blackmails him into publishing his fantastically mundane poetry.Reminiscent of Richard Russo’s Straight Man, Are You Happy Now? is a comic novel about the hard work of understanding what it is you want.

About Richard Babcock

Until stepping down in 2011, Richard Babcock was the longtime editor in chief of Chicago magazine. Before that, he spent more than a decade as a top editor at New York magazine. He is the author of the best-selling Kindle Singles stories “My Wife’s Story” and “Ah, Rat.” Are You Happy Now? is Babcock’s third novel, after Martha Calhoun (1988) and Bow‘s Boy (2002). Raised in Woodstock, Illinois, Babcock graduated from Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School. He lives in Chicago with his wife, Gioia Diliberto, an acclaimed biographer and novelist. He has taught at Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Knox College, and Loyola University of Chicago. In addition to writing and teaching, Babcock occupies himself in following the Chicago Cubs, a team he credits for a lifetime’s schooling in the “nuances of failure and loss.”

Reviews

Goodreads review by Donald

Richard Babcock has written a fantastic new novel that was a pleasure to read. ARE YOU HAPPY NOW? brings us into the world of lead character John Lincoln, executive editor for a small Chicago publisher. Lincoln is still young, early thirties, but he feels his career chances and his overall general l......more

Goodreads review by Irma

Ok..so this was a totally different read for me...totally not what I expected but walked away with the sheer satisfaction that this book came into my life. Set in my home town of Chicago, this author knew his shit for sure, as I took the journey with him as he took me through every facet, nook and cr......more

Goodreads review by Willow

I really enjoyed this story. John Lincoln is an editor in a small publishing company based in Chicago (which the author did a great job of describing). He is an East Coast transplant who dreams of leaving the Midwest and his dreary job to work for a big publisher in New York. Lincoln is dour, cynica......more

Goodreads review by Vanessa

I enjoyed this book more than I thought I would at the outset. Lincoln was just a little too terrible a person, a little too unapologetic, a little too unlikeable for my taste (and normally I love a good unlikeable character). Shoving an elderly lady and not stopping to help her up and see if she was......more

Quotes

Society of Midland Author Awards, finalist in the Adult Fiction category“A smooth, winning plot” —Publishers Weekly“[A] smart yet winsome story about the realization of unlikely dreams.” —Booklist“A compelling look at the world of words and those who love, write, edit, and sell them.” —Rick Kogan, Chicago Tribune“The headlong, grimly uncomfortable ride John Lincoln endures across Chicago’s literary, sexual and baseball divides is a sweet comic blast onto West Waveland Avenue. Gone.” —James McManus, author of Going to the Sun and Positively Fifth Street“A witty, rueful novel about one man’s midlife crisis amid the upheavals in the publishing world.” —Jeannette Walls, author of The Glass Castle and Half Broke Horses

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List