Happiness: A Memoir: The Crooked Little Road to Semi-Ever After

A shirt-grabbing love story that follows a one-of-a-kind family through twists of fate that require nearly unimaginable choices.

Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio.

Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant - Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn't want kids.

Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends.

Mere hours after Gracie's arrival, Heather's bliss is interrupted when a nurse wakes her: 'Get dressed.

Your baby is in trouble.' This is not how Heather had imagined new motherhood - alone, heartsick, an unexpectedly solo caretaker of a baby who smelled 'like sliced apples and salted pretzels' but might be perilously ill.

Brian reappears as Gracie's condition grows dire; together, Heather and Brian have to decide what they are willing to risk to ensure their girl sees adulthood.