In the heart of Hong Kong, amidst the city’s vibrant energy, I found myself deeply engrossed in Lori Ostlund’s collection, Are You Happy?, scheduled to release on May 6, 2025. The stories, rich and intricate, lingered long after my train journey back to Hong Kong. This interview, born from that initial fascination, explores the depth and complexity of Ostlund’s work, from her novelistic short stories to her exploration of profound themes like loneliness, grief, and the unspoken truths that shape our lives.
Tony Huang: Hello, Lori!
Lori Ostlund: Hi, it’s been quite a long time!
Tony Huang: Yeah, years! I finished reading your new collection while on the train ride to Hong Kong and back. When I got off the train, the stories were still on my mind; I couldn’t put them aside. That night, I spent about two hours sorting through those ideas and I thought I might need to write a review.
Lori Ostlund: I was glad to read your review and I’m really looking forward to discussing the stories with you.
Tony Huang: A notable observation I had while reading your stories is that they are remarkably intricate in their composition. The depth, breadth, and characterization resemble that of novels, giving them a novelistic quality.
Lori Ostlund: When people think about short stories—especially contemporary ones—they often envision narratives that unfold over a very short period of time, a couple of hours or a day. Certainly, I enjoy this kind of compression. However, I appreciate novelistic short stories that span longer periods also, though not everyone is a fan of novelistic stories. I suspect that this feeling is based, in part, on the ways that novelistic short stories can go wrong: often, they end up with a lot of summarizing. None of us wants to read a summary. It’s like reading a synopsis, which can feel tedious.
In “Are You Happy?” there are several novelistic stories, as you have noted: “The Gap Year,” for example, which spans a couple of decades, and “The Bus Driver,” which takes place over a longer period and involves making some leaps forward and back in time.
When I think about how to construct a novelistic short story, I think of time as vertical rather than horizontal. It is almost like creating a silo of time. Not everything that happens during this period of time can or should be part of the story. Otherwise, you end up with the excessive summarizing that I mentioned above.
Tony Huang: Right. So, the title of the new collection is “Are You Happy?” There’s also a story with the same title in the collection. I’m curious about the reasoning behind choosing this title for the entire collection. Is there a specific story behind it?
Lori Ostlund: Yes, there is a story about how it became the title. My former agent and I parted ways during the pandemic, which meant I had to search for a new agent—with a story collection. In the United States, story collections are much harder to sell. I felt confident about the stories, and I was lucky to end up with an agent I had long admired. During our initial conversations about the collection, I mentioned that I found my working title, “Just Another Family” (which is the title of the novella in the collection), a bit flat, and he agreed. I had also considered using the title of another story, “The Peeping Toms,” as a title for the whole collection, as several of the stories revolve around the theme of how we perceive each other and the act of watching others or feeling watched.
Henry, my new agent, was the one who was wise enough to suggest that the collection should be titled “Are You Happy?”, which is the title of another story in the collection. Among other things, the book deals with certain obsessions that seem particularly American to me, and the obsession with happiness is one of them. In the titular story itself, the main character’s mother, who is dying, asks him, “Are you happy?” This question shocks the narrator, as it seems unexpected from her mother, but the story also explores his own difficulty embracing the fact that he has built a good life for himself.
There’s a common belief that happiness is something you can find and hold onto indefinitely. I’m more intrigued by the complexities behind the concept—what people mean when they speak about happiness. For me, “Are you happy?” is often the wrong question to ask ourselves or others. Instead, I’m interested in exploring what gives people hope—community, love and relationships, a sense of purpose.
Tony Huang: Exactly! It seems that nearly every story in the collection relates to happiness or its absence. I understand that there are no simple yes or no answers to such a complex question, but this is what makes the exploration of these stories so haunting and attractive for readers. I also read one of the blurbs for your new collection, which noted that your writing balances dark humor with themes of loneliness and grief. How do you navigate these elements? Balancing humor and grief in storytelling can be challenging.
Lori Ostlund: Speaking first from a purely craft perspective, I can’t start a story on a serious note and then shift to humor; I need to begin with humor to set the tone, then begin moving back and forth between humor and more serious elements. I believe humor enables me to tackle topics that might otherwise be uncomfortable for me or for readers. When people are laughing, they are often more open to exploring darker themes and uncomfortable truths. Flannery O’Connor once said that when people are laughing, their defenses are down, and they are most vulnerable—this is when a writer can deliver a powerful punch. That pretty much sums up what I hope to achieve with humor—that and the fact that people like to laugh. We need to laugh. In fact, I’ve noticed that when I read a story aloud for an event, people are eager to keep laughing. There comes a moment when the tone shifts from humorous to serious, and audience members sometimes continue to laugh, eager to hold onto the humor, even as the story turns dark. Growing up in the Midwest, I developed a particular fondness for dark humor. I often say that Midwesterners are happiest when they tell a joke that only they find funny.
Tony Huang: Would you elaborate on the Midwestern traits in your writing? Many readers of The Hong Kong Review may come from various parts of the world and might find this interesting. I also feel that your stories convey a sense of restraint, both in style and in the emotions depicted, which relates to the Midwestern way of not showing emotions openly.
Lori Ostlund: Yes, you hit on something important, Tony, by mentioning the restraint around showing emotions. I grew up in Minnesota, a state in the middle of the country and just below Canada, and the town that I grew up had a population of around 400 people, most of them of Northern European descent. My family is Norwegian and Swedish. What defined the place, for me, was this sense of restraint or unwillingness regarding emotional discussions. There’s a prevailing belief that certain things simply shouldn’t be talked about.
My parents owned a hardware store, and I was quite shy as a child, so I spent a lot of time observing how people communicated. I found that when something significant was being discussed, people would start talking, hesitate, and then change the subject. The real meaning, I realized, lay in those silences, and this prompted me to wonder what was really being said and what connections were being made that they thought I was too young to understand.
Growing up in this world taught me a lot about subtext and about writing dialogue and emotion. I often liken it to coming through the back door instead of the front. Coming in through the front would be saying something direct, like, “This is really sad,” and the character cries. The back door is about finding a way to evoke sadness without explicitly labeling it as such.
Tony Huang: Yes, I think that’s evident in almost every story. Readers can pick up on what is hidden beneath or between the lines.
Lori Ostlund: When I started writing “The Gap Year,” I realized Matthew, the father, was grieving the loss of his son, which needed to be addressed with restraint. Writing directly about loss felt too heavy, so instead, we learn that Matthew used to make origami for his son when he was a boy, origami animals that he would hide in places he knew his son would look such as the refrigerator drawer for cold cuts. Now, he spends his nights folding origami as he mourns his son, and each morning he burns the origami he has created. In moments of grief, people often seek rituals to pass the time, and for Matthew, folding origami every night becomes that routine, one that ends in destruction.
Tony Huang: That’s an interesting way to handle the absence of something significant in life.
Lori Ostlund: Yes, especially when he and his wife struggle to connect. There’s a quotation from Richard Price that resonates with me and that I often quote for my students. He noted that when writing about really big things, you need to focus on something really small. Instead of writing about war, he explains, you write about a child’s burnt shoes lying on the road.
Tony Huang: That’s very insightful. Now, there is this very interesting story. When I read this story, I was smiling because I found “Asian furniture store,” “Two Serious Ladies,” and names I heard you and Anne mention the last time you visited me and Nancy and I know the story behind these names. Could you tell the readers of The Hong Kong Review more about the stories behind these names and how you incorporate real-life stories into your writing?
Lori Ostlund: You’re referring to “The Peeping Toms,” which is a form of autofiction—autobiographical fiction. The story itself draws heavily from my own experiences. These real-life experiences influence my writing, yet the finished story feels completely fictional to me—it doesn’t feel like my life, even though I know that others read the stories and recognize these obvious parallels to my life.
But the autobiographical facts that you refer to are as follows: In 2006, Anne (my wife) and I went to Malaysia to teach, returning in 2008 with a container of furniture, which led us to open a store in Albuquerque, New Mexico, called “Two Serious Ladies.” The store’s name comes from a novel by Jane Bowles that Anne and I both love. It’s about people wanting to explore the world, yet feeling afraid and needing to retreat, a common theme in my work. Our store focused on Indonesian furniture, thanks to connections we made while living in Malaysia, and Korean furniture. During this same period, my sister, who was living in Korea and married a Korean man, also made some connections for us there. The story is set in a fictionalized version of our store, Two Serious Ladies.
During the seven years we operated the store, lots of strange things happened—including a Peeping Tom appearing frequently outside our bedroom window and taking odd things from our yard—fertilizer, jeans from the clothesline. In fact, I am thinking about this period of my life a lot right now because I am working on my next book, a novel that revisits some of the same themes as this short story, including the specter of violence that often hangs over women.
To return to your question about how I incorporate my own experiences into fiction, I have a rule for myself: When I start writing something close to my life, I must quickly alter significant elements in order to find the real story I want to tell and uncover the deeper truth. It’s like I’m walking down a hallway in my head, and if I simply keep recounting the facts of what happened, the doors in my imagination slam shut pretty soon. In order to keep this from happening, I make a big change early on in order to encourage my imagination and to allow my creativity to steer me in new directions.
Tony Huang: I think that’s interesting. I often find myself guessing which parts are real and which are fictional. Sometimes, the distinction is so subtle.
Lori Ostlund: That’s absolutely true. After writing a story, I sometimes find it difficult to remember the truth of what really happened. It’s like saving a file and overwriting the old version until all I can recall is the current version.
Tony Huang: In this collection, your stories feature different characters who lead very separate lives, but they seem interconnected as well. How do you depict this interconnectedness in your storytelling?
Lori Ostlund: Okay, let’s talk about how the stories connect.
While all the stories originated from my brain, that’s not enough to make it a cohesive collection. As the editor of the Flannery O’Connor Award, I read a lot of story collections and find myself thinking about this question of cohesion. Sometimes, stories connect through recurring characters, but that’s not the case here. (On a funny side note, my publicist shared some early reviews, and one of the reviewers noted that all of the cats in the stories are named Gertrude. I’ve never had a cat named Gertrude, but I realized that this reviewer is absolutely right.)
Many of the stories are set in Minnesota, particularly small-town Minnesota, or in New Mexico, where I lived for many years. So there’s continuity in setting. But mainly the collection coheres around a series of themes that run through it, including what I call the specter of violence—an omnipresent fear that something terrible might happen, even when nothing catastrophic occurs. Of course, in some stories the awful thing does happen, but in others they do not, but the story revolves around the very real fear that they might. There are people and objects and events—peeping Toms and stalkers and loaded guns— that remind the characters that awfulness is out there, and so the characters live their lives under this looming sense of danger, which controls and defines their lives. This theme permeates the stories, reflecting how fear shapes the experiences of various groups—whether it’s women, the LGBTQ community, or other minorities.
Another central theme is loneliness. Before I had my furniture store, I was aware of loneliness, but the store really gave me a window into the depth of loneliness in this country. Many customers would come in seeking conversation, simply looking for human connection. I will never not be interested in loneliness.
Tony Huang: Yes, and I think grief is also a vital theme in many of the stories. For instance, in “The Gap Year.” I was curious about how emotions like grief and sadness affect your characters.
Some readers tend to prefer lighter, brighter narratives because life can feel heavy as it is. How do you approach themes of grief, and how do you find balance in representing these emotions in your writing?
Lori Ostlund: That’s a great question, Tony.
A few years ago, a writer friend invited me to join a panel at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference, the title of which was “No More Dead Bodies on the Page.” She had received feedback on her novel suggesting it needed more tragedy, more dead bodies, so she instead wanted to explore how fiction can also give us hope and allow us to embrace compassion, and she reached out to writers, like me, who believe that literature can explore these things also. To be clear, terrible things happen, and I believe that our job as writers is to write about the full range of human experiences.
My struggle—both in life and in writing—is not to give in to cynicism. The pandemic left a lot of us feeling cynical. There’s a tendency—in the U.S. at least—to equate cynicism with intelligence, which I consider nonsense. I heard an interview not long ago with a researcher who challenged this assumption; his research indicated that non-cynical people are often smarter. I think the older I get, the less interested I am in cynicism.
To be clear, I am not interested in sentimentality, but I am interested in how human beings find connection and community and embrace compassion.
Tony Huang: I believe another point we touched on earlier is the secrecy and unspoken truths. What role do hidden or unrevealed secrets play in shaping the characters and how they pursue happiness or unhappiness?
Lori Ostlund: Is there a specific story you have in mind where you think secrets play a significant role?
Tony Huang: For example, in “Are You Happy?”, I noticed many things are hidden, particularly between the two characters. They live together but don’t fully share their pasts or familial backgrounds. One character feels uneasy about the partner’s parents trying to help, and this contributes to their decision to leave the city.
There are many things people tend to bury deep inside themselves. When others approach them about those issues, it creates discomfort and makes them feel unsafe or vulnerable.
Lori Ostlund: I like how you described this, and it captures a central theme in the collection. The story you mentioned, “Are You Happy?”, as well as “Just Another Family,” both feature protagonists who hide their true selves from their partners. They crave connection but fear that full revelation might lead to rejection. Each time the narrator in “Just Another Family” attempts to confide in her partner, she’s reminded of more hidden truths that complicate her willingness to open up.
In a much earlier, much shorter, first draft of “Just Another Family,” I received feedback from an editor that the main character remained stagnant. I set the story aside for several years, and when I revisited it, I realized the main character wasn’t attempting to make sense of her past. To be able to show or measure this change on the page, I needed her partner—someone who wishes to know her—to have witnessed her at her worst and best. The narrative arcs toward her vulnerability and the courage it takes to share those secrets—or at least some of them. I like to believe that the ending is both hopeful and realistic.
In real life, secrets can destroy relationships. In fiction, however, secrets can drive character development, conflict, and plot. They function as pivotal elements that reveal truth and depth in storytelling.
Tony Huang: With all the topics we’ve discussed today, I’m sure readers will find much to be curious about. For my final question, I’d love for you to elaborate on your current project since you mentioned you’re working on a new novel.
Lori Ostlund: Yes! When I sold the story collection, it was a two-book deal: this story collection, which was already written, and my next book, which is a novel. Several years ago, I began working on it, then set it aside, and now I’m back to it. It’s called The Proprietresses, and it follows two women who own an Asian furniture store in Albuquerque. Sound familiar? It also revisits themes such as loneliness and the specter of violence, both of which remain two of my main preoccupations as a writer, I think.
My tendency, as someone who writes both short stories and novels, is to allow secondary characters to take control of the narrative at times by telling their own stories. I did this in my last novel, After the Parade; the main character listens to the stories told by other characters and comes to think of this as part of his. In The Proprietresses, I aim to highlight the loneliness of people frequenting the store, weaving their stories into the main narrative. When we had our store, people—strangers—came in and shared very intimate stories with us. I am always intrigued by the fact that we are often more comfortable telling our deepest secrets to strangers. I love secondary characters, and I hate the tendency we often have to use them only in service of the main characters. I like the sort of secondary character that the reader wants to follow home instead. Of course, the challenge for me now is to connect these individual stories to the overarching story of the novel.
Tony Huang: That sounds fascinating! I can’t wait to see how it unfolds.
Lori Ostlund: Thank you! I hope it will be interesting. I appreciate your thoughtful questions, Tony. Your skill in weaving them together has really guided our conversation today.
Tony Huang: This has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for taking the time to talk with us.
Lori Ostlund: Thank you for having me!
Lori Ostlund’s novel After the Parade (Scribner 2015) was a Barnes & Noble Discover pick and a finalist for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and the Ferro-Grumley Award. Her story collection, The Bigness of the World, won the 2008 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the California Book Award for First Fiction, and the Edmund White Debut Fiction Award, and was a Lambda Finalist and a New York Times Editors’ Choice. Her third book, entitled Are You Happy?, will be published by Astra House in May 2025. The final story in the collection, “Just Another Family,” appeared in the 2024 Best American Short Stories.
Tony Huang, PhD, is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Hong Kong Review. He is also the founder of Metacircle Fellowship, Metacircle (Hong Kong) Culture and Education Co., Ltd. and Metaeducation. He works as a guest-editor for SmokeLong Quarterly. His poems and translations have appeared in Mad Swirl, The Hong Kong Review, The Best Small Fictions Anthology Selections 2020, Tianjin Daily, Binhai Times, SmokeLong Quarterly, Nankai Journal, Large Ocean Poetry Quarterly, Yangcheng Evening News and other places.
Copy editor: Nancy He
Intern Copy Editor: Scarlet Li
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