Family Happiness

By: Laurie Colwin

Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell

From the acclaimed author of Home Cooking comes a heartfelt novel about a midlife crisis and a woman tired of being taken for granted—and a reminder that family, like happiness, can take many forms.

"Sheer perfection." —Elin Hilderbrand

To the rest of the world, Polly Solo-Miller Demarest lives a charmed life. She has a beautiful home, a dashing lawyer husband, and two delightful children. But beneath this idyllic surface, the pressure of being the “perfect flower” of an illustrious family—and a stable, always-available wife, mother, and daughter—are getting to her. The spark has gone out of her marriage, and to her own surprise, she’s having an affair. What follows is at once cathartic and provoking, and both may be necessary states in order for Polly to become the kind of person she wants to be.

©2014 Laurie Colwin (P)2022 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

“Utterly delightful.... Sophisticated, funny, knowing,clear-eyed ... and entirely affecting.” —The Washington Post

"When I read Family Happiness, I felt like Laurie Colwin had been reading my mail: she was putting language to feelings that I had never expressed and I felt almost unhinged to be reading about them in a book. If you’ve ever been in a relationship with another person, if you’ve ever had a family, you need to read this book." —Ann Patchett

"This novel is sheer perfection. Colwin is so delicate with her characters that you love all of them equally, whether or not they are on the conventional side of morality." —Erin Hilderbrand

A beautiful novel

This is one of my favorite novels. It’s incredibly well written and is an always absorbing exploration of a woman’s deep and thoughtful inner life. Lori Colwin is one of the best novelists of the 20th Century.

very wonderful writing

great performance of a beautifully written book that has stayed relevant 50 years later. I truly enjoyed listening to this audio book.

Too Precious

The story never builds to much. Rather, it seems to have been an opportunity for the author to paint a too-precious portrait of a too-perfect family. It’s also hard to gauge the historic period. Women taking their furs to Spring storage? Married women referred to as “matrons?”

LOVE LAURIE COLWIN - still not inspired narration

This COULD have been a five star listen but I several times almost stopped listening due to the AWFUL children's voices - in particular Didi and Martha (who is not a child but simply narrated like one). This narrator mixes what is clearly a gift in terms of understanding Laurie Colwin's prose and understanding some of the characters - in particular that of Wendy, Polly's mother - with an atrocious ear for appropriate children's voices that simply ruined the narration when I had to hear them. Luckily for the listener there are very few chapters with much children's dialogue and the character of Martha doesn't appear often either. Unfortunately Campbell still sometimes fell into a baby voice for Polly - the main character - that was also beyond annoying. Sorry to look a gift horse in the mouth - have been waiting years for Laurie Colwin's books to be on audio and was very very grateful to find them, but potential readers should be aware that MOST of this narration is excellent if you can just have the patience to get through what are thankfully minimal awful grincing moments of baby talk.

urban novel of new york manners

Laurie Colwin is an original. Funny, stylish, intelligent. She's my comfort reading, I've loved her for decades.

Ugh. Insipid performance and inane story

I too was led to this story by the NPR story. The story full of shallow, unsympathetic characters, drags on and on. The narrator butchers the German, egregiously mispronouncing a character’s name and putting on a terrible, vaguely Slavic accent. And every sentence ends with a rising tone that grates on the nerves almost as much as pretty, petty, perfect, pathetic Polly.

Nothing There….

I don’t normally write a review…
But I heard this book being talked about on NPR, I was looking forward to the listen. I did finish because I thought there would be something there.
Nope :(
Save your credit!

Did not care for it

This book did not keep my attention, I kept needing to rewind and eventually skipped to the end.

DEPRESSING

Depressing, Depressing. Depressing. Poor little rich girl is depressed because s she has the perfect life but is not assertive. Has to have an affair to learn her value. Don't waste your credit.

Dashed hopes….

After hearing a story on the radio about great books that people have read multiple times in which this title was mentioned, I decided to give it a try. My hopes were quickly dashed, but I kept going expecting it to get better. It didn’t. To the last chapter, this was difficult to read. A loathsome group of characters. The entire cast superficial, entitled, and self-indulgent. The author attempted to make the protagonist sympathetic, but I could not get there.