The Happiest Man in the World:

An account of the life of Poppa Neutrino

by Alec Wilkinson
301 pp. Random House/New York, 2007 $24.95

Review by: Nicki Laskowski

When Poppa Neutrino, the main character of Alec Wilkinson’s The Happiest Man in the World, was 12 years old, he saw a documentary about the aborigine, a people who lived solely off the land and had nothing. But Neutrino was captivated by the smiling faces and the narrator’s description that these were the happiest people in the world. At that moment, he knew he wanted that kind of existence.

So Neutrino wanders the country, from town to town and coast to coast, and like a modern-day pied piper, he finds people who are willing to follow him on his many adventures from playing music with the Flying Neutrinos to building a raft of garbage and sailing it successfully across the Atlantic Ocean.

“I don’t know the truth of life, but I know how to make the fire,” Neutrino once said. “Do you want to live as you’re living, with no fire, or a fire that’s gone out or with half a fire, or a fire that only works sometimes, or do you want to live like me, in the fire all of the time?”

Even at 71 years old, Neutrino cannot rest, and decides to build another raft in the hopes of crossing the Pacific and, possibly circling the globe.

Wilkinson, whose writing is vivid and fresh, takes on the daunting task of piecing together the events of Neutrino’s life, which includes tracking down the many characters Neutrino has crossed paths with. Increasingly throughout the text, Wilkinson takes on a more visible roll, changing the pace a bit. Part one, an account of Neutrino’s childhood and adolescence, seems to flit from one person or idea or hobby to the next without time for a pause or transition. Crossing into section two, though, Wilkinson’s presence helps guide the narrative forward. Without him, the story feels as if it could almost spiral out of control because in Neutrino’s world, life isn’t always linear.

In the last third of the book, Wilkinson observes Neutrino’s plans to travel across the Pacific, a project frustrated by a number of hurdles, leading even Wilkinson to have doubts about the trip. But, as Wilkinson discovers, sometimes it’s the journey and not the destination that’s important.