A Happy Death

Written in his early twenties and retrieved from his private papers following his death in 1960, A HAPPY DEATH is a remarkably candid portrait of its author as a young man. As the novel follows the protagonist, Patrice, to his victim's house--and then, fleeing, in a journey that takes him through stages of exile, hedonism, privation, and death--it gives readers a glimpse into the imagination of one of the great writers of the 20th century. (goodreads.com) *** “I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.” “But sometimes it takes more courage to live than to shoot yourself.” “You know, a man always judges himself by the balance he can strike between the needs of his body and the demands of his mind. “To think the way you do, you have to be a man who lives either on a tremendous despair, or on a tremendous hope. On both perhaps.” “When I look at my life and its secret colours, I feel like bursting into tears.” *** Astonishingly ruthless, miserably immoral, awfully actual... interrogation of inner self, examination of fate: deprivation versus profusion, might versus right, outrage versus regret, life versus death...(Farhan Khalid, goodreads.com) Called a "preamble to L'etranger," A Happy Death is similar in plot but was Camus' first book, written in his early 20s but never published during his lifetime. It's rather disjointed style-wise and not "polished" in its draft mode, but this is what makes it really interesting, and in my opinion, "good." One really gets a sense of Camus' writing abilities and there are some amazing sensory descriptions and sentences that blew me away. (Alicia Kachmar, goodreads.com) This Camus fellow is one hell of a writer. His mastery of prose is truly remarkable, and I find myself rereading certain sentences over and over, enjoying the profound effect made on me. (Aaroon Powell, goodreads.com)