The Ha-Ha

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.

Jennifer Dawson (1929-2000) was an English novelist. She studied at Oxford, where she suffered a breakdown and spent several months in a hospital. After graduating in 1954, Dawson worked as a teacher in a convent in France; a welfare worker in London’s East End; and a social worker in a psychiatric hospital. Her experience both as a mental health professional and a patient formed the basis for her 1961 acclaimed debut novel The Ha-Ha, which won that year’s James Tait Black Memorial Prize as well as being adapted for the stage and broadcast by the BBC on radio and television. Over her lifetime Dawson wrote six more novels, a collection of short stories, and coauthored a children’s book.