When reading fiction, I like happy endings as much as the next guy.

Really.

I love it when the star-crossed lovers get together, the nefarious murderer is apprehended, and the plucky kids find a way to save their family home. I find tears in my eyes every time at the charming conclusion of the awesome sci-fi classic movie Galaxy Quest.

But when the story toboggans into a sloppy happy ending without any build-up or a deus ex machina gets dropped so hard on my head that I see stars, well, then I'm irritated. The characters get a happy ending and I end up pissy.

Case in point: The Road.

Throughout the apocalyptic future world constructed by Cormac McCarthy, the author spends 400 pages presenting a colorless hell hole: cannibals who keep pantries with live humans, women who get pregnant for the sole purpose of spit-roasting newborn flesh, thieves, killers, cut-throats…. Even the father in the story is an asshole, and his innocent son begs him to remember his own humanity.

It's a little grim.

And in the last few pages as the father lay dying in the middle of the road (Hey, the book came out 6 years ago, so yeah, spoilers. Get over it), a kindly stranger emerges out of the gray, ashen landscape to offer to raise the about-to-be-orphaned son. The mysterious rescuer claims to have his own wife and daughter nearby and what's one more in the family? Once Dying Dad knows his son will be cared for, he kicks. Son weeps. New Dad escorts the son away to his new happy family.

What the living fuck was that?

Seriously?

Throughout the entire book we didn't meet a single decent person, not one. The impossibility of finding food drove people to insane inhuman behavior. And forty-five seconds before the father's death, out of the fog waltzes stalwart Mike Brady eagerly accepting the challenge to feed another mouth.

Perhaps this happy ending could be tolerated if there had been one decent person in the book.

I read another general fiction book recently that was brutal and beautiful. The characterizations were great, the plot realistic, convincing. The financially-troubled protagonist was a 13-year-old girl doomed to her poverty, her family. But lucky for her, right at the end, a second-string character who disappeared from the novel 50 pages prior inexplicably writes an enormously fat check that allows her to go to college.

Again, chamomile tea at my side, afghan over my legs, I must yank off my wire-framed glasses, and ask, "WTF?"

I wonder.

Do you think reader demand forces authors to consider happy endings? Do they to it to increase sales? I have to believe Cormac McCarthy's publisher said, "Dude. Human pantries? Yer killing us…and forget having any book sales."

Or perhaps it's an odd, misplaced mercy when the writer looked at the bleakness that he/she hath wrought and decides, "What the hell, I'll throw in a little sugar."

I must admit, I was originally afraid my publisher might read King Perry and insist on a traditional happy ending. I mean, there are no cannibal pantries or anything like that, but not everything gets wrapped up neat and tidy. One review on goodreads said:

"I can't recall the last time I was so delighted and uplifted by a book that doesn't have the traditional romance ending. This is coming out under Dreamspinner's Bittersweet line because of that ending – but believe me, there's nothing bitter about it. I was left with a huge smile on my face and joy in my heart."

Sweet.

I was delighted that my publisher made no such request; the ending stands as I conceived. I was really glad for that. Sometimes life doesn't wrap up neatly. And yes, sometimes it does, which makes those endings all the sweeter.

I think my favorite happy/unhappy ending comes from Charles Dickens' Great Expectations. Dickens' researchers explain that in the original draft, Pip meets Estelle many years after this childhood sweetheart crushed his heart. From her carriage, she shakes hands with him and he learns she has been abused and suffered, that she understands now what it is to have a broken heart.

Dickens' pal, Wilke Collins, thought the ending was too sad and encouraged a rewrite.

In the published version, Pip and Estelle meet in the charred ruins of the estate where she played her cruel games under the supervision of Miss Havisham. Pip concludes the novel by saying, "I saw no shadow of another parting from her." I love it. I see three possible conclusions:

Those who crave a happy ending see Pip and Estelle together at last.

The slightly more cynical might see Pip getting dumped again, but once again he doesn't see it coming.

And for those who recently finished reading The Road and believe the absolutely worst about humanity, well, they realize that Estelle is merely tricking Pip to go into her human pantry.

I bet Pip tastes a lot like chicken.

The End.