Review: The Happy Valley by Benjamin Harnett
The Happy Valley by Benjamin Harnett is an innovative and genre-bending work that reveals startling truths about an idyllic rural community in upstate New York.
Separated into two parts – “The Farm” and “The Key” – an unnamed narrator embarks on a journey to find June, his ex-lover who has disappeared. Moving back and forth between the historical and more recent pasts (the 1800s, the 1990s) and a futuristic present (2036 and beyond), the novel is part historical novel, part science/speculative fiction, and part self-reflexive meta-fiction.
In “The Farm,” our narrator recalls junior high, where he first met and fell […]