THE BIG HAPPY

Is it possible to feel happy—and only happy? That’s the quest of David, the hero of Scott Mebus’s quirky new anti-love story THE BIG HAPPY. Stung by a devastating break-up from “The Eater of Souls” and nearing thirty, eternal-optimist David decides to take a calculated crack at finding pure happiness and chucks his job as an MTV producer to pursue the literary life. But when he finds himself falling in love with Janey, an alluring younger woman whose knack for witty repartee is matched only by her instability, his search for the “big happy” risks becoming a big bust.

It doesn’t help that he lives in an apartment the size of a Tic Tac, or that he pays the bills (just barely) as a DJ for weddings and bar mitzvahs. To make matters worse, David finds that he actually enjoys leading grandmothers in the “YMCA.” Could anything be less-Hemingway-esqe?
At least he’ll always have his friends—or will he? Annie, his closest friend from childhood, is getting married to a man David dubs “Rat Boy.” Dustin and Cameron, David’s cohorts of single-guydom, are doing the unthinkable and settling down; and Zach, David’s model of cool, is harboring a secret that could capsize the whole crew.

Tossed in a maelstrom of angst and uncertainty, David finds himself asking the big questions: Can love and happiness coexist? Are we doomed to live out the mistakes of our youth? Do friendships ripen, or rot, as we age? As he continues in his quest, David must come to terms with change and learn that imperfection is inevitable. In the comic tradition of Nick Hornby, Mebus creates pitch-perfect scenes that strip bare the hard-hitting realities of the modern single man, and maybe, just maybe, lead us to some answers.

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