Happy endings by margaret atwood
Once upon a time, and then they lived happily ever after.
John and Mary fall in love and get married. They both have worthwhile and remunerative jobs which they find stimulating and challenging. They buy a charming house. Real estate values go up. Eventually, when they can afford live-in help, they have two children, to whom they are devoted. The children turn out well. John and Mary have a stimulating and challenging sex life and worthwhile friends. They go on fun vacations together. They retire. They both have hobbies which they find stimulating and challenging. Eventually they die. This is the end of the story.
Atwood, Margaret. “Happy Endings.”
why we loved it
We at Extra Literary Affairs totally adored Happy Endings by Margaret Atwood—it blew our minds! First off, we couldn’t get over how Atwood plays with storytelling like a chef mixing crazy ingredients. The story starts simple: John and Mary meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after. Boring, right? But then—plot twist!—Atwood flips the script and gives us wild alternate endings, like Mary getting her heart stomped on or even (gasp!) dying. We loved how unpredictable it was—just when we thought we knew what would happen, bam! New drama!
What really hooked us, though, was the story’s sneaky-smart message. Atwood isn’t just telling us a love story; she’s shouting, “Hey, life’s about the journey, not the ending!” In one version, John dumps Mary, and yeah, she’s a mess at first—crying into ice cream, the whole deal. But then (cheer!) she picks herself up, starts painting, and builds a cool new life. We loved that because it’s so true—sometimes the messy middle is way more interesting than the “happily ever after.” It made us think (whoa, deep!) about our own choices and how they shape our stories.
And can we talk about how FUNNY Atwood is? Her writing feels like she’s winking at us the whole time, especially when she drops lines like, “Now try How about this?” before throwing another crazy twist at us. Plus, her joke that all endings are basically the same (except, you know, for all the drama in between) had us cracking up. We devoured this story like our favorite bag of chips—no way we could stop at just one bite! Now we’re totally obsessed and ready to binge-read everything Atwood’s ever written. Game on!