'A tender and whimsical story' Elle

Everyone, at some point in their lives, wants to be someone else.

Eric Kherson - forty, divorced, disconnected - is questioning all his life choices. One meeting with an old school friend is all it takes for him to pack in his prestigious job and accept her offer of a high-powered government position.

He throws himself into her world of endless networking and high-risk deals, but when a business trip to Seoul starts unravelling, Eric feels more lost than ever. Wandering the city streets, he stumbles across Happy Life, a shop offering a curious service: fake funerals. For Eric, this encounter with death might be the very thing to reawaken his appetite for life...

"Here is a lucid and jubilant novel about death!" - Le Journal de Quebec

"The author returns with a tender and whimsical story" - Elle

"It is a novel faithful to the Foenkinos touch, filled with second chances and the important place of love in the trajectory of a life. Fans will not be lost, and new readers will love it." - L’actualité

"To live better, there is nothing like the thrill of death; a phenomenon marketed in Seoul and told by David Foenkinos in his new novel" - La Libre Belgium

"His most magnetic novel since The Mystery of Henri Pick." - La Presse

"With Happy Life, David Foenkinos offers his characters a second chance at life" - Le Soir

"-- - Praise for David Foenkinos" - --

"It doesn't get more captivating than this" - Elle

"Foenkinos's surreal yet relatable novel, a French bestseller, considers life in our age of anxiety, when other people's picture-perfect lives make our own seem drab in comparison" - Washington Post