The Happiest Place to Cry

This is a love letter to contradictions.

For college senior Madison Garrett, a long-awaited semester working at Walt Disney World suddenly turns from a dream into a nightmare when her father is diagnosed with terminal brain cancer. In a flash, her family’s happy life is turned upside down- just as she finishes training for her job in “The Happiest Place on Earth.” While her dad endures aggressive treatment for his aggressive cancer, Madison is surrounded by balloons, parades, and nightly fireworks, struggling to understand the contrast between the terror she feels for her family and the magic she’s supposed to make. In her debut and not-entirely-linear memoir, Madison traces the tension between hope and sorrow as she and her family navigate her dad’s traumatic illness. When grief crashes down, the very joy, hope, and faith that got her through the contradiction of cancer at Disney World suddenly feel unfamiliar and even untrustworthy. Met with platitudes, cheesy grief books, and another job description that requires her to be joyful, Madison must yet again learn how to hold on to the legacy of her dad and the promise of her

faith in the face of grief and anguish. “The Happiest Place to Cry” is, yes, a record of deep loss. But it is also a chronicle about the stories we tell ourselves to keep going: the ones that keep us afloat, the ones that help us cope, and the ones that ensure we remember. Join Madison as she excavates loss, legacy, and the places she’s cried as she learns to embrace the contradiction of being heartbroken in the happiest place on earth.