Berlin-based Irish writer Naoise Dolan’s debut novel Exciting Times (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group) was not only a massive bestseller but also a critical success. The writer won the 2021 Hawthorden Prize and was on the longlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her second novel The Happy Couple (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of The Orion Publishing Group, 2023) is as fast-paced and immersive as its predecessor. It is on this year’s Polari Book Prize longlist. The literary award recognises LGBTQIA+-themed works published in the UK.

Divided into six parts, this contemporary novel begins by informing its readers how its central protagonists — Luke and Celine — got engaged. As with modern-day relationships, both parties in this union were perplexed about whether they must ‘settle down’. Furthermore, their decision is complicated by the fact that both the protagonists are queer.

It begs the question then, why are they choosing to mimic cishet union — marriage? Is there no other form of companionship that they could’ve imagined? However, given the nature of these protagonists, who represent a large part of the present generation — a mix of millennials and Gen Z, such questions aren’t explored for two reasons. First, as Celine only “momentarily” wondered why she was marrying a man, it would be odd to interrupt her inner voice. Second: it’s not something that takes anything away from the novel, for Dolan doesn’t want to make things didactic and preachy. Instead, she shows how a large part of the confusion plaguing couples like Luke and Celine’s life unknowingly stems from the transitional phase their generation is witnessing in terms of its changing outlook towards dating and relationships.

Though the novel begins with the couple’s engagement, the first part, which describes the perspective of the ‘Bride’ zooms in on Celine’s past relationship with a fellow pianist Maria. It’s a subtle nod to what Celine’s teacher told her to do while teaching her piano: Establish the midpoint. Like all engaging stories, it begins from the middle.

“Musicians loved Celine; everyone loved Maria,” Dolan writes. This should make one curious whether Celine was jealous or perhaps has developed an inferiority complex owing to this fact. No to both, for Celine, the author informs, is “better at stoicism” and Maria is just a “bad girlfriend”. Dolan renders these descriptions in bullet points, presenting the thought process of the characters believably. It resembles the kind of analysis several people attempt while figuring out their investment in a particular relationship. Often, it is what several therapists ask their clients to do. Which is why this technique of writing is a defining feature of Dolan’s prose: it reflects its generation as is.

There are more such stylistic ways in which Dolan helps progress the story alongside critiquing heteropatriarchy. Sample the chapter where the author describes how Celine Quinn became Celine McGaw after her mother got separated from her father and what she read and watched between 1996 and 2008:

Books where women date or marry men (378)

Books where women date or marry women (0)

Films and TV shows where women date or marry men (561)

Films and TV shows where women date or marry women (2 – Friends, Sex and the City; in both it’s a subplot played for laughs)

Then, in an internal dialogic manner, she shares the question that queer people are bored of hearing: “Which of you is the man?”

From the middle, the story reaches the present. Celine and Maria aren’t together, and Luke has entered Celine’s life. It isn’t as if he doesn’t bring his own set of issues. He remains silent, mostly; is aware of the other person’s expectations of him; and is hard to read. Despite all odds, after a few years of dating (or was it a situationship because they were living in a shared apartment?), they decide to get married. However, on the day of the engagement party, the groom is nowhere to be seen. It may be the case that Celine mistook a Luke ‘yes’ to be the real ‘yes’. This set her up for failure.

In the part dedicated to Groom, readers learn Luke’s fickle-mindedness. Throughout this section, the chapters are bare, which signals two things: (1) Luke is lazy and (2) He really can’t express much. There are chapters with only a sentence, which is nothing but Luke’s attempt to open the Notes app on his phone and to either begin writing a marriage ceremony speech or to think of ways to say no to this marriage. But it’s also where his backstory with Archie (Archit Patel) is supplied. It wasn’t as if they were in a relationship while they were in Oxford together, but what’s certain is why they broke off: Archie was a junkie. Interestingly, Luke doesn’t have any reason to break up now. Perhaps he’s one of those men who give in eventually to a cishet marriage, and Dolan rightly observes: “In heterosexual monogamy, the woman forfeits at least as much freedom as the man – but her agency isn’t valued enough to be considered a loss.”

Other characters in the book also reveal how Dolan tries to represent multiculturalism in her stories without making them gimmicky in any way. Then, she captures the anxiety of living in the present age. But it is what Dolan observes about queerness that stands out. Two examples. First: for the most part, being queer is to be lonely, and this is what Dolan writes: “Loneliness wasn’t having no one. loneliness was the gap between what you hoped for and what you got.” Second: the perverse need to look for ‘The One’. To that end, Dolan offers: “That’s why I hate “The One” – it belittles our capacity to connect.”

Pacy, immensely accessible, and queer, The Happy Couple is certainly a tale of our times.