'Why did you laugh?'
'I don't know. Just that it seemed so funny being alive at all.'

This lost classic coming-of-age tale is a tragicomic portrait of one young woman’s university breakdown and recovery, introduced by Daisy Johnson.

A tea party at an Oxford college. Earnest undergraduates in floral dresses clink cups, discussing essay-crises, punting, summer balls. But to one student, they are grotesquely transformed: she is sitting among ominous armadillos with scaly shells, buzzing with black flies. Then, the laughter comes. As she is engulfed by mirthless hysterics, the Principal has no choice but to send her away.

Josephine's entrance into the world of other people wasn't what she imagined. Since her mother's death, reality seems a badly painted canvas, viewed through the wrong end of a telescope; she always thinks the wrong things, cowed by the brightness of existence. It is a relief to belong, for once, within the mental institution where she is taken. But eventually, she must reintegrate with society — and through a transformative encounter with a fellow patient, a return to real life seems possible . . . 

'Highly original and deeply relatable, The Ha-Ha is a radiant and powerful work that shines an unflinching light on the darker places.' Claire-Louise Bennett

'Some novels alight in the glimmering interstice between enthralling and necessary. This is one of them.' Claire Kilroy

'How can a novel so quiet and unsentimental be so moving? The sadness is right there, the beauty sneaks up on you. It took my breath away.' Meg Mason

'An unsettling read - poetic and sharp, a fascinating exploration of mental illness.' Catherine Cho

'Gleaming and courageous.' Emma Glass

'Such a brilliant book, and so timeless . . . A short, singular, elegant novel.' Guardian

'Cool, short, tender and occasionally as prettily ruthless as the impact of a stiletto heel.' Tatler