Discuss “Happy Days” by Han Ong

[We meet every Sunday when there's a new New Yorker.]

Greetings, Fictioneers!

On Sunday, June 29, 2025 at 4 pm CDT/5 pm EDT, on Zoom, we will discuss this week’s New Yorker Fiction story from the issue dated June 30, 2025: “Happy Days” by Han Ong.

Caveat Lector: This story clocks in at over an hour.

This is Ong’s second New Yorker story this year. In January we discussed “Ming”, about a man who is bequeathed a valuable celadon cup by someone he met only briefly, years earlier.

1. Read “Happy Days” at this link. Try a private or incognito window if blocked by the New Yorker's paywall or through the Libby app via your local public library “card”.
2. Want to listen to it? Use the “Listen to this story” on page audio app on the story page (60:28, or, per the New Yorker stylebook, “01:00:28”, at 1x speed). The author also reads the story at this link (62:08/01:02:28 with an intro).
3. The author interview, “Han Ong on Partisan Passions and Life Affirmation in the Theatre” is at this link.

"The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the Berlin Prize, Ong is the author of more than a dozen plays and two novels, “Fixer Chao” and “The Disinherited.”

- from Han Ong Reads “Happy Days”