A Good Happy Girl

Starred review from February 5, 2024
In Higgins’s striking and visceral debut, a 30-something woman copes with her childhood trauma by nursing a cough syrup addiction and fostering a masochistic relationship with a lesbian couple. Boston attorney Helen pursues serious Catherine and sensitive Katrina, a married couple she met online, hoping for love and acceptance and for them to “mother me meanly.” Woven into the narrative are shards of Helen’s fractured family history. Her parents are in prison for elder abuse of Helen’s grandmother, having neglected her while she was in their care, and over the course of phone calls with her father, Helen begins to suspect that her parents may have been responsible for the death of her younger brother, Ryan, when they were children. She remembers being left alone with him for long stretches, the house being unheated in the winter, and Ryan getting sick. After some prodding, her father offers to provide more details in exchange for a character statement supporting his early release. Higgins expertly captures the longing and self-loathing that drive Helen’s masochism: “Catherine tsked me and I thought I would be happy to hear that disappointment frequently.” The results are as captivating as they are disturbing. Agent: Katie Grimm, Don Congdon Assoc.