I recently read that American readers are far more interested in a happy ending than, for example, European readers, who more readily accept less tidy endings.
I can’t speak for the entire American reading public, but I admit without doubt or hesitation that I WANT A HAPPY ENDING.
I don’t just want it. I crave it. Need it. Won’t sleep well at night without it.
Seriously. When I was younger, I had more patience with sad, nuanced endings. I could contemplate and appreciate the terror and horror of Robert Jordan dying at the hand of fascists in Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls. And I don’t even remember exactly what happens in John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men. All I remember is that I cried piteously.
Now, when I read a book, I can’t bear the sadness of a sad ending. I want to know that everything turns out okay. I need the comfort of knowing that no matter how bad things are in the book, no matter how many hard decisions a character makes, no matter how many tragedies just beat through my eyeballs from the page to my brain, there was purpose and meaning to the literary journey.
How did I get to be this way? What could possibly have happened over the last 35 years to turn me into such a sappy wuss?
Life maybe?
Love, pain, disappointment, toil, hardship, fear, determination, confusion, happiness, delight, contentment, discouragement, anger, weariness, discomfort, pride, shame, anxiety, and joy.
Maybe by the time you’re old enough to appreciate the years you dedicated to nurture small beings who grew up into big ones, you just want to be reassured that there was a reason and purpose for every good decision and bad mistake you ever made.
The journey of life is untidy enough.
Give me a good book. Make me laugh or cry.
But give me a happy ending.
***
Ann K. Howley is the award-winning author of Confessions of a Do-Gooder Gone Bad.
Please visit her website at http://annkhowley.com/#about-ann
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/22829128@N08/2565408883″>Steinbeck – “Travels with Charley”</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/”>(license)</a>