I Want You to Be Happy - by Jem Calder (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

Named a "Best Book of 2026 So Far" by The New Yorker

A tender, witty, and sharp debut novel about the passions and peculiarities of modern love, by "an extraordinarily gifted writer" (Sally Rooney).

Chuck and Joey meet in a bar. He's in his mid-thirties; she's twelve years younger. He long ago abandoned his ambition of being a novelist and works as a copywriter at a big ad agency. "Lead copywriter," he corrects himself. Joey is living paycheck to paycheck on her barista wages and privately dreams of making it as a poet. They go back to Chuck's luxury flat--a world away from Joey's cramped house-share, the crumbs in her bed. Soon, Joey is imagining a future between them and Chuck is moving on from a mistake in his recent past. Amazing, how meeting a new person can make you feel so new.

Funny, excruciating, and true, Jem Calder's I Want You to Be Happy is a sharp-eyed tale of two people searching for meaning and connection in modern times, missing the mark maybe, but still trying.

Review Quotes

"I Want You to Be Happy is an irresistible novel that asks complex questions about contemporary life and refuses easy answers. I couldn't stop reading." --Sally Rooney

"[Calder] gives the perennial human features of self-sabotage and solipsism a fresh look." --The New Yorker

"A totally devastating--and all too relatable--portrait of modern romance." --Barry Pierce, Vogue (UK)

"[A] closely observed, sad-but-sympathetic novel about the cagey, jittery dance that characterizes the modern-day mating game." --Heller McAlpin, NPR

"I Want You to Be Happy's charm is its magnetism and relatability . . . it felt hypnotizing, like a long story from a friend you always have good banter with." --Sam Franzini, The Brooklyn Rail

"Calder's characters feel startlingly (and, at times, infuriatingly) real . . . Sparse and exacting, Calder has a remarkable way of capturing the complexities of dating, relationships, and simply existing in the 2020s . . . A clever, wry, and hyper-realistic portrayal of contemporary life." --Kirkus

"Jem Calder's I Want You To Be Happy brought me so close to its characters that their world became more real to me than my own. This is a gripping, wise, sad, funny book. It pays such close attention to the textures of life as it's actually lived--in all its in-between moments and unspoken feelings and ambivalence, its blackouts and needy texts and ambushes of tenderness. Jem Calder feels like a particular kind of wizard, sculpting precisely-realized moments of aliveness that feel, at once, startlingly lucid and radiant with mystery. I was utterly enthralled." --Leslie Jamison, author of Splinters

"I became totally invested in this. An elegant and disquieting vision of contemporary pain." --Saba Sams, author of Gunk

About the Author