I Will Make You So Happy

1965: The stage is set for happy days in the Norwegian Social Democracy. The work of housewives has become easier and more efficient with the installation of refrigerators, washers and tap water.

Building A in the new apartment complex outside Trondheim is a world of exuberant vitality and social control, where eight families live side by side. The housewives judge each other’s outfits and habits with critical eyes and biting commentary. On offer are home-perms and gossip, instant soup and babysitting – and if you are very lucky, you might catch a glimpse of Peggy-Anita on the fourth floor doing her Friday cleaning buck naked.

And one day, a young handyman arrives, offering to install peepholes in everyone’s doors.

I Will Make You So Happy depicts authentically the roles of men and women in the 1960s while exploring the true human nature beneath the guise of the era’s traditional family values.

Praise for I Will Make You So Happy:

“From the very first page I am hopelessly captivated … As is usual in Ragde’s novels, the coziness in one scene can quickly give way to a painful depiction of woman abuse and neglected children … The lives of these seven women are otherwise directed towards making their husbands happy and providing the family with a perfect (or at least spotless) image. To those of us who grew up after the 1968 revolt and with two working parents, this feels as exotic as a novel of the French revolution. But in fact, a lot of the characters’ thoughts and actions are terrifyingly timeless. And that is another reason why I Will Make You so Happy is a novel you both read straight through and read again.”
(Uppsala Nya Tidning, Sweden)

“Ragde describes the everyday routines of these families with an unbeatable kitchen sink realism that doesn’t shy away from either dirt or beauty. And she captures the atmosphere of the times to such an extent that it  produces a choking sensation and a flashback to the 60s … a bouncing, growing feeling that the world was radically changing. Something had opened the door to the future. And something old refused to go away."
(Helsingborgs Dagblad, Sweden)

"Meanwhile Ragde tries to give dignity to the women’s lives she portrays. Even if the socially and economically vulnerable house wife is difficult to see as an ideal, it would be even more tragic to also consider all these housewives’ lives as utterly wasted. Here is a vivid picture of all the information and knowledge of detail needed to keep a household going at a time when resources were scarce. And not just keep them going, the aim of several of the families in this novel is to move forwards, to climb the social ladder. To gain entrance to modernity ... Ragde is a skilled storyteller, who knows how to establish a character and make it come alive to the reader quickly, by means of a few, carefully chosen details."
(Svenska Dagbladet, Sweden)

“A charming, entertaining and authentic story”
(NRK)

“A melodrama with a sure touch for style… I Shall Make You So Happy offers [Ragde’s] usual storytelling skills, and you have to be rather grumpy not to be impressed by her ability to quickly bring every one of the flats to life for the reader, like a light that is lit in room after room inside the building…. As an author, Anne B. Ragde has an exceptional talent for describing the tasks of everyday life, and their hypnotic poetry.”
(Dagbladet)

“Well oiled entertainment”
(Aftenposten)

“I Shall Make You so Happy contains an impressive amount of descriptions of objects and activities typical of their times, where the author shows a keen eye for details … Like the TV series Mad Men, the novel has a critical subtext that make it something more than nostalgic reminiscing about times long gone … I Shall Make You So Happy has a genuine eye for children’s vulnerability that make it something more than light entertainment”
(Bergens Tidende)

“The time travel Anne B. Ragde takes her reader on is charming and nicely done with all the correct details … Ragde’s strength, as she proved with the super popular Neshov Trilogy, lies in creating people we feel we know from before. That is a demanding task. When she’s at her best, the characters become three dimensional and colourful, “real” people living real lives, even though we only catch glimpses of those lives “
(Dagsavisen)

“Elegantly the author opens door after door in the low apartment block with eight apartments, and allows us to get to know the families living there … the character depictions are exciting … Ragde’s prose is well crafted as always, in particular she show herself a master when it comes to drawing characters and situations through the dialogues. In few words she creates living people, people we can identify with … Thoroug research … All in all a fine Ragde novel, entertaining, witty and with a bite to it.”
5/6
(Fædrelandsvennen)

“A lavish cast of characters, filled with charm and humour”
(Vårt Land)

First published: 2011, Forlaget Oktober
Anne B. Ragde: Biography and bibliography

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