For readers of Crying in H Mart and In the Dream House, a searing, intimate and blisteringly honest memoir about mothers and daughters, grief and healing, and finding your voice.

Minelle Mahtani had taken a leap of faith. A new mother in a new life, she'd moved across the country for love, and soon found herself facing the exciting and terrifying prospect of hosting her own radio show. But as she began to find her place in the majority white newsroom, she was handed devastating news: her Iranian mother had been diagnosed with tongue cancer.

Just as Minelle was finding her voice, her mother was losing hers.

What does it mean to amplify the voices of others while the stories of your ancestors are being buried in your mother's mouth? Why do we cling to superstition and luck when we’ve lost all faith in healing those we love? And how do we juggle bearing the burden of looking after an ill parent when we are trying to parent our own children?

In exquisitely lyrical and inventive prose, Mahtani recounts the experience so many of us recognize: a life calibrated through calculating when to speak and when to be silent in a world that feels like it forces us to be broken.

Minelle Mahtani is an associate professor in the Department of Human Geography and the Program in Journalism at the University of Toronto-Scarborough. She is past president of the Association for Canadian Studies, 2011 Winner of the Glenda Laws Award from the Association of American Geographers, and a former national television journalist at the CBC.

Minelle Mahtani's profile page

"It's clear from Mahtani's prose that she has spent time in front of a microphone: Her voice is perfectly calibrated to draw you in, tell you a story, and—like the most skilled interviewers—crack you open. The title of the book invokes an ending, but by the time I got there, I didn't want it to be over. I was too beguiled by the sharp, funny self-analysis of Mahtani's work as a radio host; her probing reflections on her bond with her mother; the tension and tenderness with which she recounts her professional rise as her mother's health declines. I tore through it. May It Have a Happy Ending delivers a cathartic experience with incredible vocal range." —Tajja Isen, author of Some of My Best Friends