{"product_id":"the-master-of-happy-endings","title":"The Master of Happy Endings","description":"The Master of Happy Endings is a powerful new novel about memory, belonging, helping others, and the vagaries of the human heart. It is also a compelling story about how a man in his late seventies manages to conjure one more great adventure for himself.\nAxel Thorstad lives in a shack on a remote island off the coast of British Columbia. Once a popular school teacher and thespian who touched the lives of hundreds of his students, he now lives in retirement and mourns the recent death of his wife.\nBut even this stoical giant of a 77-year-old finds the isolation too much. He begins to run want ads in newspapers offering his services as a tutor, and meets the indomitable Mrs. Montana. She hires Axel to coach her precocious teenage-TV-actor son Travis for his school exams while he shoots a new episode in Hollywood. Life in L.A. is far removed from his isolated life in rural B.C., and soon Thorstad finds himself caught up in the drama of his young student’s life, and the return of an old flame.\nSet amidst the fleshpots, sound-stages and dining rooms of L.A., this engaging novel of lives and loves lost and found also gestures to the courage one needs in the face of the vulnerabilities of older age that all too soon beset.\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0887625231\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: BVV.0887625231.G\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Jack Hodgins\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Missing dust cover, otherwise book is in good condition with some wear from normal use.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Blue Vase Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43787319935037,"sku":"BVV.0887625231.G","price":21.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0589\/4225\/9261\/files\/0887625231-0.jpg?v=1791582616","url":"https:\/\/www.bluevasebooks.com\/products\/the-master-of-happy-endings","provider":"Blue Vase Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}