Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The Ha-Ha

The Ha-Ha

Dawson, Jennifer

Paperback

Classic FictionGeneral FictionLiterary Fiction

Publisher Price: $17.00

ISBN10: 1668088568
ISBN13: 9781668088562
Publisher: Scribner Book Company
Published: Nov 11 2025
Pages: 192
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.80 Width: 5.60 Depth: 8.30
Language: English
A prizewinning, semi-autobiographical debut novel that explores a young woman's struggle with mental illness at Oxford University in the 1950s--for readers of Ottessa Moshfegh, Melissa Broder, and Sally Rooney.

At a tea party at Oxford University in the 1950s, earnest undergraduates in floral dresses clink cups, discussing their studies, sports, and summer balls. But to one student, Josephine, they are grotesquely transformed: she is sitting among ominous armadillos. Then, the laughter comes. As she is engulfed in mirthless hysterics, her college has no choice but to send her away.

Since her mother's death, Josephine's reality seems a badly painted canvas, viewed through the wrong end of a telescope. It is a relief to find a sense of belonging, for once, within the mental institution where she is confined. But, eventually, she must reintegrate with society. Through a transformative encounter with a fellow patient, a return to real life seems possible.

Originally published in 1961, The Ha-Ha was met with critical acclaim and belongs on the shelf alongside Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar. Praised as luminous by The New York Times and a singular, elegant novel by The Guardian, and with a new introduction by Melissa Broder, The Ha-Ha offers a moving and timeless perspective on mental illness and coming of age.

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