“Happy Happy,” a novel by Corey Mesler

When I first began reading Happy Happy (Livingston Press 2026), I wondered why my friend Corey Mesler didn’t write this book as a memoir, instead of a novel. He explains why it would have been more difficult to write the painful aspects of his struggles as memoir, but his fiction version is so powerful, so gripping, that I often forgot where the line between truth and fiction lay: the line between Corey and his wife Cheryl, owners of Burke’s, the oldest bookstore in Memphis, and his characters, Col and Cara, the heroes of this remarkable story. Story. As Corey says, “Story takes over. . . . Story will get itself told.” And his story does that in spades.

First, he wrote an article for Memphis Magazine, in September of 1999. He called it a “public disclosure, a denuding,” saying that he was “outing my fearful self.” His vivid portrayal of panic attacks is the best I’ve ever read about this terrifying illness:

“. . . there is a howling in the bowels, a fear that the cage of my bones will literally burst apart, that all is hopeless, that I have entered a dark place and there is no other side, no light at the egress, that I am going—right then—into madness, that I will embarrass myself and those I loved, and finally, most assuredly that death is imminent, that death stands darkly and predatorily at my quaking side. I can’t imagine feeling worse. And I will do anything—anything—to avoid another attack, including staying inside my house. Including permanently staying inside my house.”

Corey has a gift with words. I looked up several to be sure he hadn’t just invented them! Words like pandiculating, wastrel, inamorata, factotum, and windershins. Corey is a gifted poet, and his prose is shot through with beautiful and powerful lyricism whether he’s writing about the love story behind his marriage, or the nightmares he faced as he dealt with his demons. Like agoraphobia. Its literal meaning is “fear of the marketplace,” and for Corey at times the marketplace was anywhere outside of his home, and sometimes even inside. Compound that with his debilitating case of Irritable Bowel Sydrome and you have a perfect storm. Years of searching for the perfect mix of meds and the blessing of “Charles,” a compassionate Jungian analyst, brought Corey to a turning point. He was turning sixty. And what happened next was surprising. He discovered pickleball. Playing three days a week and feeling that adrenalin rush that comes from a measure of success at a sport was transformative.

Corey Mesler

Somehow, through years of mental and physical struggles, Corey managed, with the help of his wife, to save a once-dying bookstore and to raise an amazing family. He would give most of the credit to Cheryl, but in the midst of dark nights and long difficult days, he managed to publish poems and stories in hundreds of anthologies and journals and over fifty books of prose and poetry. He’s been nominated for the Pushcart many times, and three of his poems were chosen for Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. He also wrote the screenplay for We Go On, which won the Memphis Film prize in 2017.Corey’s latest book, The World is Neither Stacked For Nor Against You: Selected Stories, is out from Livingston Press.

So, why did he title this book Happy Happy when it’s so full of fear and darkness and struggle? Yes, of course, it also has happy moments. But here’s what Corey says at the end of the book (spoiler alert?):

“And friends, I want to do something that I’ve never done before. I want to write a semi-autobiographical novel about all this, this profusion, this confusion. It could work. (Isn’t it pretty to think so?) It could be, you know, happy happy.”

Susan Cushman is author of two novels, John and Mary Margaret and Cherry Bomb, one short story collection, and two memoirs, and editor of four anthologies, including Southern Writers on Writing, in which Corey has an essay.  A native of Jackson, Mississippi, Susan has lived in Memphis since 1988. Corey and Cheryl Mesler hosted her for the launch of several of her books at Burke’s Books.