The Committee on Town Happiness consists of ninety-nine linked stories about disappearing townsfolk. Air balloons are launched to search for the missing, galas proliferate, laws are imposed ad absurdum, and a guerilla group forms as the Committee shapes the future of small-town America in this biting examination of modern bureaucracy.

“Smart and funny and oddly touching and ravishingly beautiful, The Committee on Happiness is typical of Alan Michael Parker in effect but sui generis in form. Some will think of this as a collection of cutting-edge stories. Some will see it as a kind of pointillist novel. Whatever. It’s a work of narrative genius.” —Robert Olen Butler, author of A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

“Alan Michael Parker’s inventive and deeply felt novel touches on both the absurdity and sublimity of small town life. These 99 linked stories skip from funny to sad and back again with brilliant economy and deadpan wit.” —Jenny Offill, author of Dept. of Speculation

Alan Michael Parker is the author of two previous novels and seven collections of poems. His awards include three Pushcart Prizes and the 2012 North Carolina Book Award. Douglas C. Houchens Professor of English at Davidson College, he also teaches in the University of Tampa low-residency M.F.A. program.