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.
Despite this somewhat gray world, I Want You to Be Happy’s charm is its magnetism and relatability ... Reading Calder’s fiction is just as easy as operating within the rhythms of life. His stories mirror existence; that alone is a talent, even if you’re looking for a gaudier narrative ... Even so, the book’s realism is sometimes a detriment ... On one hand, it’s interesting to read a straight-shot account of a relationship—no frills, just the facts. Even if its structure evades truly memorable moments, it is charming to think of Calder as the internet age’s chronicler-in-residence, almost as if he’s working off a transcript from an actual couple. A more bombastic novel might not be his thing, stylistically, but his astuteness here suggests the possibility for something more detailed and dramatic in the future.
I read it twice, both times in a single afternoon, and was impressed by Calder’s deft characterisation, by his observant descriptions and the social conditions they implied. He has genuine talent ... The only problem is the aftertaste. I finished the novel with a slight emptiness, as though Joey and Chuck, hollowed out by the impersonal world they were formed in, had drifted away, leaving little trace.
Unless a writer has something new to say on the subject, the book runs the risk of being quickly forgettable ... Poorly written sentences ... His first book, a short story collection, was praised, but his graduation to the longer form is less successful and perhaps that’s the reason why.
