A Happy Death

Mina once had a life as a consultant that checked all the boxes of success: a cushy income, vacations to exotic destinations, such incredible prestige. She’s left all that behind to live in a small flat in Edinburgh, making just enough on freelance work to get by, determined to truly live a happy life; all it takes, she’s decided, is a combination of antidepressants, jiu jitsu lessons, and indulgent sex. But when she joins a local sauna and meets an eccentric older woman whose life is falling apart, while also dealing with an aging and terminal client, the purpose of Mina’s life suddenly, and very brightly, comes into focus. 

Nayeri explores the ache for something more than the hamster wheel, the disappointments of love, the ludicrousness of middle-age fulfillment, and the monumental surprises that a life can bring with tenderness and wit and intelligence. For fans of Miranda July, Caroline O’Donogue, and Catherine Newman, Nayeri puts one singular woman at the center as she attempts to seize all she can out of life not just for herself, but for everyone around her.

• “A Happy Death is a tender, slyly comic novel about a woman who tries to be selfish and ends up opening her heart to the people around her. In Dina Nayeri’s capable hands, what starts out as an amusing character study expands into a moving exploration of what we owe to ourselves, our friends and neighbors, and even the strangers we encounter on dating apps, at the public sauna, and on the mat in jiu-jitsu class.”
  Tom Perrotta, author of Ghost Town
• Praise for Dina Nayeri
  
  The Ungrateful Refugee
  Winner 2020 Clara Johnson Award“Nayeri uses her first work of nonfiction to remind readers of the pain and horrors refugees face before and long after their settlement. . . . . telling their stories with tenderness and reverence.” I>The New York Times
  
  “A work of astonishing, insistent importance… This is a book full of revelatory truths, moments where we are plunged deeply and painfully into the quotidian experience of the refugee. ” I>The Observer
  
  "Using energetic prose, Nayeri is an excellent conduit for these heart–rending stories, eschewing judgment and employing care in threading the stories in with her own . . . This is a memoir laced with stimulus and plenty of heart.”
  Minnesota Star TribuneWho Gets Believed: When the Truth Isn't Enough Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Dayton Literary Peace Prize "An ambitious and moving exploration of the borders we draw around credible victimhood, and will cement Nayeri’s position as a master storyteller of the refugee experience.” —Aamna Mohdin, The Guardian“Memoir, philosophy, and social history collide in this compelling examination. . . . [A] powerful, clarifying book.” —Adrienne Westenfeld, EsquireRefuge “Rich and colorful… [Refuge] has the kind of immediacy commonly associated with memoir, which lends it heft, intimacy, atmosphere.” –New York Times