Angie Kim’s Happiness Falls is the latest pick for the Good Morning America book club.
Kim’s novel, published Tuesday by Hogarth, follows a Virginia man who goes missing after taking his teenage son to a park. The son is a witness to his father’s disappearance, but he can’t speak because of a genetic disorder called Angelman syndrome. The book is Kim’s follow-up to her 2019 debut, Miracle Creek, which won the Edgar Award for best first novel.
In a starred review, a critic for Kirkus wrote of Happiness Falls, “The claim that a book will change your life often seems like exaggeration. Here the potential is real.”
ABC News journalist Juju Chang announced the selection on GMA, saying, “Everyone’s talking about it. From its brilliant opening line to the very end, this book grabs your brain and your heart and pulls you in. Even Jodi Picoult said she read it in a single sitting.”
Kim appeared in a video talking about the novel. “Where did the father go?” she said. “Is he alive? Did he leave them behind? To figure out the answers, the family has to learn how to truly communicate and connect with one another. I love this family, and I hope you will too.”
Michael Schaub, a journalist and regular contributor to NPR, lives near Austin, Texas.
