Happiness Falls

Verisimilitude is the closeness of events or details to reality. The novel’s setting is highly realistic: It not only references many of the major world events of 2020, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the political situation of the US, but also incorporates them into the plot. For instance, the Parkson family struggles to find therapists to help communicate with and exonerate Eugene because “those who weren’t sick were in the midst of getting notified of the outbreak, getting tested, preparing for quarantine, and canceling everything in their lives” (205). The pandemic create barriers to what the characters are trying to accomplish, and sometimes benefits them, as when Eugene escapes detention in a facility due to a COVID-19 outbreak. The mask-wearing during COVID-19 becoming normalized intersects with the novel’s Language and Silence theme, as Mia reflects on how the pandemic has elevated texting above face-to-face communication, which has “made our society more accommodating for non-oral-encoders who can’t speak but can type” (228). Similarly, the novel considers the rise of anti-Asian bigotry and the reckoning with police abuse of power through the experiences of the Parkson family and the way Detective Janus runs roughshod over Eugene.