Book Club Discussion Questions for Happy by Celina Baljeet Basra

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Barikamà: An Italian Workers' Co-operative and our BookBrowse Review of Happy.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. How does the novel's fragmented style impact the storytelling? What does the formally eclectic and polyphonic structure of the novel suggest about Happy's inner and outer worlds?
2. What consequences does Wonderland set in motion for Happy's journey? What structural forces does Wonderland represent to Happy and his community? What is the significance of Wonderland being a copycat of Disneyland, and what do the park's divers offerings suggest about globalization?
3. In what ways is this a workplace novel? How is it the same and different from other workplace novels you've read recently? Do the conventions of the workplace novel in Happy provoke new considerations around the politics of labor?
4. What are the elements of Happy's immigration experience that feel familiar to you? What are others that feel foreign or faraway?
5. Media (such as film, TV, and literature) and food feature heavily in the novel as some of Happy's main preoccupations. How do they relate to the book's larger themes about cultural diaspora, immigration, labor and human rights?
6. Why is it a significant that Happy begins in a cabbage farm and ends up in a radish farm?
7. What does Zhivago represent to Happy? How does Happy's queerness affect his self-concept and aspirations?
8. Happy's dreams are big, but sadly he is unable to accomplish those dreams. How do you make sense of Happy's last acts? Does the ending of the novel unsettle any of your previous assumptions about Happy and his optimism?

Please click here for the publisher's reading guide, which includes a playlist, recipes and more.

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Astra House. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.