In this episode, I have the honour of chatting with Minelle Mahtani to discuss her memoir, May It Have A Happy Ending.
In May It Have A Happy Ending, Minelle travels back and forth in time to investigate the parallels between finding her voice in broadcasting and watching her mother lose hers to tongue cancer.
The book is an exploration of voice, with people, animals, nature, and things speaking vividly about identity, belonging, and the importance of making our own place in the world. It challenges us to examine the impact of our voice, the manner of our questions and the weight of the answers we give others.
It’s also an exploration of love. Of love that’s too much, too little, and love that’s just right.
Show highlights
- Laughing after death happens
- Keeping the voicemails of loved ones
- Holding love and the bad memories of the departed simultaneously
- The scam of false hope and the vulnerability of caregivers
- Passing down traditions and sharing the role of matriarch
- Asking anti-colonial questions on the path to writing the book
- Knowing the worth of her sound
“Grief is nonlinear. People don’t tell you this necessarily when you first go through this. But that’s the thing. Some days you feel fine, other days you feel like crawling into a hole. And sometimes you will laugh harder than you ever will have before in your life. And it might be three days after the passing of someone you love deeply.”
Minelle Mahtani
May It Have A Happy Ending is out now from Penguin Random House Canada.
Got any thoughts on this episode, or want to suggest authors you’d like to see on the show? Send me a note here.
Listen on Spotify
Listen on other platforms
Watch the show
About Minelle Mahtani
Minelle Mahtani is an author, scholar, and former radio host. She has won several prizes for her work, including a Digital Publishing Award for an essay in The Walrus that became the basis for May It Have a Happy Ending. She is an Associate Professor at the University of British Columbia and lives in Vancouver.
About Maggie Lou Meets Her Match
A searing, intimate and blisteringly honest memoir about mothers and daughters, grief and healing, and finding your voice—and the winner of the Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize.
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.
Guest’s links
Follow Minelle on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/minellemahtani/
Host’s links
Book a one-on-one with Lola: https://wordcaps.com/coaching/
Discover more from Journey of the Art
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.