In Search of the Good Life

Human Happiness, Brian Fawcett’s memoir about his parents, is a tale of love, life, strife, multiple dysfunction and, yes, happiness. Hartley Fawcett and Rita Surry’s story, delivered by their youngest son, reaches deep into the day-to-day history of “small decent lives … grounded in common sense” in a time—the post–World War Two Golden Age of North American prosperity—when dreams of endless progress and a bright future were still possible and in a place—Prince George—at the edge of British Columbia’s not-yet-exploited resource-rich northern frontier.

From the late 1940s through to the mid 1960s, in a still intact local culture and economy, Hartley and Rita plan and lead “the Good Life” (something son Brian says is no longer available to their boomer and Xer offspring, who might lead “a,” but never “the” Good Life.) They raise four children, “Build a Business Empire” (as Hartley, who favours speaking in capital letters, puts it) and maintain a fearless...