Often I Am Happy

Book excerpt: When Ellinor addresses her best friend Anna, she does not expect a reply. Anna has been dead for forty years, killed in the same skiing accident that claimed Henning, Ellinor's first husband and Anna's lover. Ellinor tells her friend that Georg has died - Georg who was once Anna's, but whom Ellinor came to love in her place, and whom she came to care for, along with Anna's two infant sons. Yet, after Georg's death, Ellinor finds herself able to cut the ties of her assumed life with surprising ease. Returning to the area of Copenhagen where she grew up, Ellinor finds herself addressing her own history: her marriage to Henning, their seemingly charmed friendship with the newlywed Anna and Georg, right back to her own mother's story - one of loss and heartbreaking pride.