[10/06/26] Vaux, Aileen Keown: Sad Man Happy Hour

Unsolicited Press, paperback

Publication Date: October 6, 2026

Publisher Marketing:

SAD MAN HAPPY HOUR is a four-part poetry collection rooted in the Pacific Northwest that resists regional mythmaking in favor of lived experience. With wry humor and earned wisdom, S hi hi ad Man Happy Hour aims to deconstruct queer alienation and our ever-changing relationship with the natural world. Determined to be more celebration than elegy, the book suggests "if you thought that life would end when the world did / then you don't know anything about life." Drawing on county fairs, 90's true crime TV, and the COVID-19 pandemic, Sad Man Happy Hour locates meaning in memory in unexpected places, while situating itself in the tradition of Northwest writers who treat the land not as backdrop, but as an active force–and in doing so, offers a portrait of the Pacific Northwest as it is: fractured, funny, enduring, and alive.