This Is Happiness

This single-sentence chapter describes the weather in Faha, Ireland: “It had stopped raining” (1).

Noe introduces us to the colorful characters of the village of Faha and the everyday comings and goings of the town in 1957. The narrative conveys the sense of community in Faha and offers a variety of examples that illustrate the trappings of the town’s daily life. The church had an actual bell that was regularly rung, there were more small family-owned shops, and people were more eccentric and family-oriented. It was five weeks before the driving test, and people did not yet know how to park properly. Noe recounts church life in great detail because “it was part of the order of the world then” (8). He also introduces numerous characters, including the Troy sisters. Perhaps most importantly, no one seems to notice that the rain––so regular a facet of life that people smoke their cigarettes backward under cupped hands––had stopped.

Noe reflects on his childhood, describing his experiences of attending a boarding school and a seminary. He explains that he felt a profound loneliness and a lack of purpose in life, often waking at night “with a fear I couldn’t name, but later came to think of as the fear I might not discover what it meant to live a fully human life” (11).