Overview

An unnamed narrator who has fled a set of friends she despised, who bring out the very worst in her and each other, finds herself once more sat at their dinner table for a single, hideous evening. The funny, propulsive new novel about hating your friends, hating what they bring out in you, hating how you pander to them, the perfect satirical summer read for fans of Emma Cline, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Ottessa Moshfegh. A LitHub most anticipated book of 2025 'Exceptionally funny and entertaining' Katy Hessel, bestselling author of The Story of Art Without Men 'A gorgeous book on being a hater, and I inhaled this in one sitting' Stylist Years after escaping her unbearable artworld friends in New York for a new life in London, an unnamed writer finds herself once more at their dinner table for a single, hideous evening. It's the day after the funeral of their mutual friend, a failed actress and - Eugene and Nicole, an artist-curator couple - are hosting a dinner party. If the narrator once loved and admired the couple and their important friends, she now despises them all. Most of all, however, she despises herself for being lured back to this cavernous apartment, to this hollow, bourgeois social set, for a dinner party that isn't even being thrown in their deceased friend's honour, but in the honour of an up-and-coming actress who is by now several hours late. As the guests sip at their drinks and await the actress's arrival, the narrator, from her vantage point in the corner seat of a white sofa entertains herself - and us - with a silent, tender, merciless takedown. A satire about friendship, capitalism, culture, and art, Happiness and Love is the razor-sharp new novel from an exciting literary voice. 'Bracing and funny and fiercely clever' Orlando Whitfield, Nero-award listed author of All that Glitters 'An ecstatic performance of heightened perception' Chris Kraus, bestselling author of I Love Dick 'Zeitgeist and timeless, cynical but not soulless. Fabulous!' Melissa Broder, author of Milk Fed and The Pisces

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9781804994566

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Reviews

Deliciously scathing . . . Judgemental yet self-aware, caustic yet warm, Dubno’s book will have you yelping in recognition – either at the state of your own friendships (or depending on your lifestyle and bank balance) at the characters on the page. * Vogue * Zingy . . . Told in a single long , savage and hilarious paragraph, Happiness and Love can be gulped in one delicious go. * Financial Times * A gorgeous book on being a hater, and I inhaled this in one sitting. * Stylist * Breathless, damning, funny, elegiac . . . The achievement here is unquestionably substantial. Dubno has managed to write a work of high style that is also a document of real emotion. -- Madeline Cash * The London Magazine * Zeitgeist and timeless, cynical but not soulless, Dubno’s propulsive debut is for lovers of Thomas Bernhard, art over theory, and anyone who has ever wondered “What the hell am I doing here?” Fabulous! * Melissa Broder, author of Milk Fed * Exceptionally funny and entertaining. * Katy Hessel, author of The Story of Art Without Men * Zoe Dubno examines character and human relations in the same way an art critic looks at a painting. Digging deeper and deeper into the thoughts behind thoughts, feelings behind feelings and questioning everything, Happiness and Love is an ecstatic performance of heightened perception. * Chris Kraus, author of I Love Dick * In Happiness and Love, Zoe Dubno viciously and delightfully skewers the vapid people – the neo-bohemians of the social media age – who masquerade their privilege as creativity. It is bracing and funny and fiercely clever, a first novel of extraordinary confidence and profoundly entertaining wickedness. * Orlando Whitfield, Nero-award listed author of All that Glitters * I loved this astute and hilarious skewering of New York’s psuedy cultural elite. Intelligent, relentless, nasty and fun, Happiness and Love is energising, vital and a total joy to read. * Francesca Reece, author of Voyeur * A master class in irony, wit and storytelling, Zoe Dubno’s Happiness and Love is one of the most incisive and entertaining novels I’ve read this year. In a style redolent of Thomas Bernhard but very much her own and zeroing in on a 21st century New York art monster milieu, she manages to capture in every sentence delicious truths about our era that a thousand news articles barely touch. A triumph! * John Keene, winner of the National Book Award *

Author Information

Zoe Dubno is a writer from Manhattan who lives in New York and London. She has an MFA from Rutgers University, Newark. Her fiction has appeared in Granta.

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