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A Happy Marriage

3.78 of 5 stars 3.78 · rating details · 1,474 ratings · 408 reviews

A stunningly candid and revelatory love story by an acclaimed novelist and screenwriter whose return to fiction after a long hiatus will be heralded by critics and readers.In the 1970s Yglesias’s first novels, written while he was a teenager, were hailed by critics as the arrival of a young American genius. A Happy Marriage, his first novel in thirteen years, is a gorgeous...more

Hardcover, 384 pages

Published July 7th 2009 by Scribner (first published June 30th 2009)

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Oct 07, 2010 Vanessa rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was a Sunday morning and my husband returned from his habitual coffee outing. I saw his car pull up outside and I expected him to walk through the front door a moment later, but he didn’t. Looking through the front window, I saw him sitting in his car, head bowed. Ten minutes later he came in, glassy-eyed and solemn-faced, and he embraced me. What could have affected my normally cheerful and talkative spouse in such a way? Had he just been to see Inception again? No – he’d just finished Rafae...more It was a Sunday morning and my husband returned from his habitual coffee outing. I saw his car pull up outside and I expected him to walk through the front door a moment later, but he didn’t. Looking through the front window, I saw him sitting in his car, head bowed. Ten minutes later he came in, glassy-eyed and solemn-faced, and he embraced me. What could have affected my normally cheerful and talkative spouse in such a way? Had he just been to see Inception again? No – he’d just finished Rafael Yglesias’s A Happy Marriage.

And so I had to read it too. I had already listened to Terry Gross’s interview with the author on NPR’s Fresh Air and thought the book sounded interesting – an account of his marriage, bouncing back and forth between its beginning, when he and his wife first meet as twenty-somethings in 1975 Manhattan, to its end, when his wife dies after a 2 ½ year battle with bladder cancer. The story is written as a fictional novel: the author's wife’s name is unchanged though he has dubbed himself “Enrique”, and presumably several other names have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty or avoid litigation.

Having lived through two close family members' prolonged deaths from cancer, I have to say that Yglesias describes the entire end-of-life process though the eyes of the soon-to-be-bereaved beautifully. But there is other wonderful stuff in here – he has boldly bared himself to the reader, letting us see into his sweet, romantic and insecure heart as a young man, his selfish, unthinking and deceitful self as a young father, and finally the mature, thoughtful and caring soul that he gains through a 29-marriage to his wife. The entire book was very well-written and highly readable – a page-turner even, but this was the stuff that I appreciated most about it, i.e., how Yglesias shows us who he was and now is, essence unchanged but enriched and made better by a loving relationship with his life partner.

This would be a great book club read, with several points for heated discussion in its pages, though I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to read a book that might spark their own internal exploration of what their relationships have given them.
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Dec 30, 2012 Dana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Beautifully, though quite graphically, written. terribly sad with moments of utter joy mingled in among the sadness. not a book for everyone, this is basically an autobiographical novel based on the author's 29 yr. marriage to his wife, Margaret, who died in her 50's. This is not a spoiler, you know this on page 1. The novel goes back and forth in time from the couple's early days, and throughout the years until Margaret's death. The author is utterly self absorbed but his love for Margaret, tho...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Kathy rated it 2 of 5 stars

This book was haunting, and the depiction of the final days of his wife's life felt raw and real. However, like some other reviewers I had little patience for the author/narrator, who was incredibly self-involved. I don't think he ever dealt with how thoroughly selfish and despicable it was to have a year-long affair with one of his wife's closest friends, and then let this "friend" spend time with his wife again when her days were numbered without her knowing how thoroughly the "friend" had bet...more

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Nov 05, 2012 Book Concierge rated it 4 of 5 stars

In this autobiographical novel, Yglesias explores a happy, if far from perfect, marriage primarily through the eyes of the husband, Enrique Sabas, as he faces his wife Margaret’s death. The novel opens with the 21-year-old Enrique being introduced to the two-or-three-years-older Margaret through a mutual friend, Bernard. Enrique is smitten, but knows this lovely creature is out of his league. He’s a high-school dropout; she studied at Cornell. The fact that he has already published two or three...more In this autobiographical novel, Yglesias explores a happy, if far from perfect, marriage primarily through the eyes of the husband, Enrique Sabas, as he faces his wife Margaret’s death. The novel opens with the 21-year-old Enrique being introduced to the two-or-three-years-older Margaret through a mutual friend, Bernard. Enrique is smitten, but knows this lovely creature is out of his league. He’s a high-school dropout; she studied at Cornell. The fact that he has already published two or three novels and lives on the money he’s earned as a writer does nothing to calm his fears and self-doubt. Bernard was right when he refused to introduce them before: Margaret is way out of Enrique’s league. The next chapter flies forward thirty years to his wife’s hospital bed, where Enrique watches Margaret in a drug-induced sleep while he ponders how he will get the courage to negotiate the terms of her death, fighting against doctors, her parents, and friends, to grant this woman he loves one final wish – to die at home.

The novel alternates with each chapter between the final two weeks of Margaret’s life and the early days of their courtship and marriage. It’s a testament to Yglesias’s skill as a writer that the reader (obviously already knowing the marriage will happen and last) is just as anxious as Enrique that Margaret like him, feels his nervousness as he dallies so as not to arrive too early to dinner, worries whether his own failings and mistakes will cause irreparable harm to their relationship. There were times I wanted to throttle him; there were times I wanted to console him. And Margaret is not without faults, though I think Yglesias allowed Enrique to dwell on her faults too much. A word of warning to the reader who is squeamish: Yglesias writes with brutal honesty about the horrors and indignities of a major illness. The final chapter hurls the reader back and forth between Margaret’s final moments and the beginnings of their relationship. I was moved to tears, at the same time my heart swelled with love and joy.
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Oct 05, 2012 Katie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Excellent book, about a happy (and sometimes miserable, and everything in between) marriage. It's got to be hugely autobiographical, since the author, like the protagonist, lost his wife to illness recently, and also dropped out of high school when he got his first book published. I couldn't help wondering where the author ended and the character began. The book is a beautifully-structured description of a fascinating relationship between two people, from when they first met to when the wife suc...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Sarah Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars

I have no idea why I chose this for a vacation read, as it certainly a "downer", but I did. The first person protagonist intercuts chapters of him as a youth, meeting and wooing the woman who become his wife, with the gruesome last chapter of that wife's life as she succumbs to cancer. Strangely, the parts of the book that should have been "fun", the youthful early years- often irritated me with the author's flowery and self-involved tone. Conversely, the author effortlessly gripped me with his...more

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Mar 07, 2012 Jordi Via rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

En un principio pensé que yo no acostumbro a leer este tipo de novelas, pero una vez terminada me doy cuenta de que Un Matrimonio Feliz no es del tipo que imaginé de entrada.
Me ha fascinado la estructura y sobre todo un par de giros en una trama que parecía previsible. Y sí, he llorado. En el tren de camino al trabajo me reprimía, pero en mi casa, en la cama, no pude evitar llorar; unas veces pura emoción contenida durante todo el día, otras de emoción y felicidad y, finalmente, una mezcla de do...more

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Jan 29, 2012 Literella rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: leseliste-2012

Inhalt:
Enrique und Margaret sind ein Ehepaar, doch leidet Margaret unter einer unheilbaren Krebserkrankung und die beiden machen sich nun auf ihren Abschied bereit.

Meine Meinung:
Wer einen spannungsgeladenen Schmöker lesen möchte, sollte ganz schnell weitersurfen und sich ein anderes Buch aussuchen. Spannend ist dieses Buch wirklich nicht! Es ist lediglich bezaubernd, emotionsgeladen und sehr stimmungsvoll.
Der Autor beschreibt abwechselnd die Beziehung zwischen den beiden Protagonisten und die En...more Inhalt:
Enrique und Margaret sind ein Ehepaar, doch leidet Margaret unter einer unheilbaren Krebserkrankung und die beiden machen sich nun auf ihren Abschied bereit.

Meine Meinung:
Wer einen spannungsgeladenen Schmöker lesen möchte, sollte ganz schnell weitersurfen und sich ein anderes Buch aussuchen. Spannend ist dieses Buch wirklich nicht! Es ist lediglich bezaubernd, emotionsgeladen und sehr stimmungsvoll.
Der Autor beschreibt abwechselnd die Beziehung zwischen den beiden Protagonisten und die Endphase von Margarets Krankheit. Er bedient sich dabei der gesamten Bandbreite an Emotionen von Trauer, Wut, über Humor bis hin zur Liebe. So begleitet der Leser Enrique in der unsicheren Phase des Kennenlernens, des ersten Kusses, des Eingestehens von Schwächen, der Hochzeit, der wahnsinnig verliebten Phase und auch beim Meistern von Problemen, wächst nach und nach mit den Charakteren zusammen und lernt sie kennen und lieben.
Der Alltag der Beiden, erst jeder für sich, dann in der Beziehung und später dann im gemeinsamen Eheleben, ist sehr glaubhaft dargestellt. Die emotionalen Momente wechseln sich mit den nüchternen und rationalen Dingen ab, sodass man immer das Gefühl hat ein wirklich glaubhaftes Bild eines gemeinsamen Lebens präsentiert zu bekommen.
Das Ende, die Zeit des Abschieds, ist natürlich sehr traurig und ergreifend, allerdings wird alles auch von einer großen Portion Nüchternheit überlagert, die der Tod nun einmal mit sich bringt. Viele Dinge müssen noch geregelt und geplant werden. Somit rutscht die Handlung nicht ins Kitschige, zu Rührselige ab. Und gerade in diesem Alltag, der den nahen Tod überlagert lag für mich das Besondere. Eine Person verliert den wichtigsten Menschen im Leben, man erwartet, dass irgendetwas gravierendes, Weltveränderndes geschieht oder zumindest die Erde für einen Moment stehen bleibt, aber nein. Alles geht seinen gewohnten Gang, nur dass da auf einmal eine Lücke ist, die nur für wenige Menschen sichtbar ist. Gerade das hat mich letztlich dazu gebracht ein paar Tränen zu verdrücken.

Fazit:
Ein Buch voller Emotionen, das trotzdem die ganze Zeit über nicht aufgesetzt oder gezwungen traurig oder gar lustig wirkt. Es besticht nicht durch übermäßige Spannung, sondern durch seine Charaktere und durch die wirklich sehr gut getroffene Alltäglichkeit und einer für mich perfekten Mischung aus Gefühl und Rationalität. Sehr lesenswert.(less)

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Jan 18, 2012 Shauna rated it 3 of 5 stars

“He expected when she woke up, that they would start talking in a way they never had, in a way they now must, about their marriage.”

This sentence from the book illuminates the sadness and irony of the title. To friends and acquaintances, to family, this is ‘a happy marriage.’ Perhaps even to each other, it’s considered ‘a happy marriage.’ But, if their souls can’t or don’t communicate, if they can’t or don’t talk about difficulties and struggles, can it be ‘a happy marriage?'

“He decided to hope...more

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Sep 28, 2011 Kristen rated it 3 of 5 stars

This is a hard book to review. It’s not the sort of book I’m typically drawn to, but I heard the novelist interviewed on NPR and my interest was piqued. It’s a fictionalized version of the author’s own life and 30-year marriage with his wife Margaret, who passed away from cancer in 2004. It’s billed as a ‘warts and all’ look at a marriage, and Iglesias has the story jump back and forth from when he first met his wife at age 21, to her last weeks as she dies from cancer. It sort of meets in the m...more This is a hard book to review. It’s not the sort of book I’m typically drawn to, but I heard the novelist interviewed on NPR and my interest was piqued. It’s a fictionalized version of the author’s own life and 30-year marriage with his wife Margaret, who passed away from cancer in 2004. It’s billed as a ‘warts and all’ look at a marriage, and Iglesias has the story jump back and forth from when he first met his wife at age 21, to her last weeks as she dies from cancer. It sort of meets in the middle of their life, which even includes his one-year affair with one of his wife’s friends while their first son was young.

I guess part of the challenge is that I feel like I’m reviewing someone’s life, not a novel. I’m in no place to judge someone else’s marriage. As a novel, I found the places that I felt like I wanted more was actually around the affair and its aftermath. Ultimately he decides to stay with his wife because he feels it’s the right thing to do for his son. And over the course of the book you see how deeply he falls in love with his wife once again, but he details little of what made him fall back in love with his wife. He also makes a point of saying that he never told his wife about the affair before she passed – he meant to, but never had the right moment. You wonder if he did her a kindness or not. I thought the two of them were very real people, who even though they lived a life of privilege had the same quirks, flaws, and beautiful qualities that so many of us have. And ultimately the novel is about the fact that he was a man who spent his whole life trying to build a name for himself as a novelist, but the best thing he ever created in his life was his marriage and his two sons – they were the real purpose and accomplishments of his life, and the best thing he will leave behind. Not his career. And I think that’s a theme that resonates with a lot of us. I don’t feel like you need to be married to appreciate this novel – in essence it is a novel about the relationships (romantic, platonic, or familial) that define your life. And it shows how God forsakenly awful cancer is.
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Mar 24, 2011 nicole rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011

You know right off the bat this book is going to be sad. It doesn't mince words. At the end of the book, Margaret is going to die. And the author's wife really died of cancer, so this is only one foot in fiction. Many reviews use the word expansive to politely describe this, but I felt it to be staggering. The book physically became harder to hold as certain scenes were retold. The depth of details as she fell apart. The constant return to the present day after being gloriously ingrained in the...more

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Sep 27, 2010 Julie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Beautiful, heartbreaking, and provocative . . . a brutally honest story told with such raw emotion that brought tears to my eyes several times (many while I was in public - I read this book on the plane and while waiting in airports :-). Anyone who is in a marriage or long term relationship will relate to these characters and their lives . . . from the euphoria surrounding those first dates and wanting more than anything just to be with the other person, to learning to live with and love someone...more Beautiful, heartbreaking, and provocative . . . a brutally honest story told with such raw emotion that brought tears to my eyes several times (many while I was in public - I read this book on the plane and while waiting in airports :-). Anyone who is in a marriage or long term relationship will relate to these characters and their lives . . . from the euphoria surrounding those first dates and wanting more than anything just to be with the other person, to learning to live with and love someone you're not sure you may "like" and contemplating if the relationship is even worth it, to truly understanding how your partner has shaped your life and added a treasured and complete dimension to your incomplete self.

The clarity and understanding I felt while reading this book is profound, I connected on a such a deep level it's difficult to explain. The reason I gave it 4 stars rather than 5, was the writing, which at times became too cliche and repetitive in it's descriptions. I'm also not sure if I really liked the final two pages, I thought he would wrap it up differently. That aside, here are a couple of passages that touched my heart:

" . . . He felt relief, a long sigh of gratitude that the race had been run, that for all his mistakes, for all his failures, for all the wear and tear he had doled out, for all that he had smashed and given away of love and good intentions and grand ambitions, for all his errors there had been an unexpected mercy, and he had not been punished. Life had given him Margaret to make him whole."

"Enrique finally felt able to explain what she had come to mean in his life. He was ready to articulate that in their twenty-nine years together both of them had been transformed, not once but three times; that he had come not only to need her but to love her more profoundly than ever: not as a trophy to be won, not as a competitor to defeat, not as a habit too long to break, but as a full partner, skin of his skin, head of his heart, and heart of his soul."

Word of WARNING: strong language and adult situations. Just thought I'd put that out there for those that are sensitive, which I am, but was able to manage my sensitivity while reading this book :-).(less)

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Jul 28, 2010 Jenny rated it 5 of 5 stars

What I loved best about this book was the structure and the honesty with which the story was told. The whole thing's about a marriage, and Yglesias ricochets back and forth between young and old with each chapter. What kept happening was this: The protagonist's wife is on her deathbed and I am bawling, and it is tender and gut-wrenchingly sad, and suddenly, new chapter! They're young again, just meeting. He is 21 and nervous as hell. He is completely endearing and she is exciting, and there is l...more

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Oct 13, 2009 Richard rated it 3 of 5 stars

I had high hopes for this book after I heard an interview with the author and even (foolishly) gave a copy of it to my father as it was portrayed as a husband and wife’s struggle with her ending years and her final days as she dies of cancer.

The title is misleading, I think, as the book largely alternates between the first year of Enrique’s marriage to Margaret (Yeglesias’s wife real name) and the last several years of their life together. But while the writing is often rich, especially about th...more

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Aug 31, 2009 Michelle rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a beautiful book. I had to think about the number of stars. Though I wouldn't quite give it amazing, that being reserved for books like War & Peace, that are really life-changing, I think it deserves more than "really liked it."

This is a painful book, a book that made me cry, but not in an ET sort of way. By the time the wife dies at the end of the novel (not a spoiler; it's clear from the beginning that this is her last week of life) Yglesias has brought us through 30 years of hist...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Jonathan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is a stunning evocation of thirty year marriage. Using short vignettes, the author moves back and forth between his courtship of the woman who becomes his wife and his attending her, more than thirty years later, as she faces a terminal illness. (There are a few moments, along the way, included as well).

In lesser hands, perhaps, this would be a heavy handed, contrived literary "device", but the structure serves Yglesias's purpose brilliantly. There is profound connection, between one's fee...more

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Jul 10, 2009 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

4.5/5 stars

The story A Happy Marriage begins in the 1970's when Enrique Sabas meets Margaret Cohen, who becomes his future wife. The two come from different backgrounds, but despite that, there is an immediate attraction.

Told in alternating chapters, it is a poignant story. It covers their dating tears, their marriage and other import events in their lives, which includes touching and compassionate detail about Margaret's battle with cancer, her ultimate demise and her husband's devotion to her...more 4.5/5 stars

The story A Happy Marriage begins in the 1970's when Enrique Sabas meets Margaret Cohen, who becomes his future wife. The two come from different backgrounds, but despite that, there is an immediate attraction.

Told in alternating chapters, it is a poignant story. It covers their dating tears, their marriage and other import events in their lives, which includes touching and compassionate detail about Margaret's battle with cancer, her ultimate demise and her husband's devotion to her throughout.

It was not a perfect marriage, there were disappointments and financial challenges along the way, but it was portrayed as a "happy Marriage" which seemed to grow deeper when the reality set in for Enrique that her would indeed be losing his wife to this dreaded disease.

Throughout the novel there was this amazing use of foreshadowing which I found very effective. The characters were real, and developed in a way that will stay with me for a long time to come. I found it particularly touching when Enrique was making final arrangements for Margaret's death, and although there were many passages I had to stop and reread a second time, this one left me teary eyed, (as it reminded me of something my mother did when I cared for her as she was dying).......

"She wants to go in oblivious peace, he thought, looking down at the profile that appeared on the sheet's edge. That morning an alert Margaret had announced that she completed her last chore, choosing her burial clothes. He understood now that when she has asked to go to her grave wearing the earrings he bought her for her birthday, she meant that to be her goodbye to him, her last words of approval and gratitude. She had spoken and he did not answer."

A deep, passionate love story of a marriage through sickness and in health. Although this one is a work of fiction, the story was inspired by the author's relationship with his wife Margaret who passed away in 2004. The author was a high school drop out who published his first novel in 1972 at the age of 17. He is the author of nine books. RECOMMENDED

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Jul 31, 2011 Sheri rated it 3 of 5 stars

A different take on a somewhat similar story told by Lionel Shriver in "So Much For That." "A Happy Marriage" is a back-n-forth chronology of the relationship of a couple married 30 years before the wife's death from cancer. Chapters set in the final months, weeks, days and even hours before her death are juxtaposed with chapters about the couple meeting, their first date, their early dating relationship, and one major bump in the road of their marriage. Two compelling themes are juxtaposed thro...more

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Nov 25, 2012 Lorri rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: personally-own, novels, jewish-fiction

Yglesias takes us through the daily struggles of hospice care, the physical, mental and emotional aspects of each moment. Illness is not only an issue for the patient, the one who is ill, but it is a family issue in every sense of the word.

Not only was Enrique caring for his wife, but also caring and trying to comfort his sons, and everyone else around him. The novel is an excellent study on family dynamics during the course of incurable illness. It is a study on marriage, love and its enduranc...more

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Jul 09, 2009 Lauren rated it 3 of 5 stars

A Happy Marriage, at many times, is the story of anything but a Happy Marriage. The novel is about Enrique Sabas, a struggling half-Jewish, half-Latino writer living in New York City and Margaret Cohen, his ivy league educated wife. The novel opens in 1975 with Enrique meeting Margaret. He immediately is attracted to Margaret and in alternating chapters, the novel tells the story of how Enrique and Margaret became a couple. Woven in the novel is the story of Margaret's battle with cancer, told r...more A Happy Marriage, at many times, is the story of anything but a Happy Marriage. The novel is about Enrique Sabas, a struggling half-Jewish, half-Latino writer living in New York City and Margaret Cohen, his ivy league educated wife. The novel opens in 1975 with Enrique meeting Margaret. He immediately is attracted to Margaret and in alternating chapters, the novel tells the story of how Enrique and Margaret became a couple. Woven in the novel is the story of Margaret's battle with cancer, told retrosepctively as she prepares to die, having exhausted all medical options. Throughout the novel, Enrique reflects on his marriage. Enrique and Margaret's marriage is a reminder that often, the only difference between marriages that last 25 years and those that don't is that the latter marriages ended in divorce.

The novel is poignant, the writing descriptive. There isn't a lot of action - the plot centering on Enrique's feelings about Margaret the girl, Margaret his wife, and the stresses of supporting his family as a writer. Enrique is often whiny, Margaret demanding. Both are self-absorbed and rather unlikeable at times. The novel is very realistic and unapologetic about both Enrique's emotions during his 29 year relationship with Margaret and his feelings as he watches Margaret's often disgusting degeneration at the end of her life. The novel does not spare graphic details of death-by-cancer. Nor does it spare Enrique's seemingly endless whining and self-pity as he transforms into the devoted husband to his dying wife.

Overall this is a 3 star novel. For some reason it didn't grab me. I found "the end" to be overly drawn out. Enrique and Margaret were a little too real, too selfish, and too disappointing. Not only was the description of cancer depressing, so too was the description of marriage itself. Finally, some of Enrique's descriptions of his in-laws border on the antisemitic. In essence, this is a good novel because the writing is good, but it isn't really a good story.

(AMAZON VINE)(less)

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Feb 06, 2011 Debbie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Debbie by: Brenda Kring

I am not the type to read books about love or loss. I can honestly say I would have never read this book if my book club had not chosen it for February.

At the beginning, I was irritated by the organization of the story, which alternates chapters between Enrique and Margaret's preparations for Margaret's death and their courtship 30 years earlier. I really wanted to read sequentially, especially once Yglesias started skipping over the answers to the questions I had at the end of some chapters. Ho...more

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Feb 16, 2012 Puneet Raheja rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wonderful and poignant. written beautifully.

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May 31, 2011 Kristen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I had never heard of this book and was not looking for a book for myself the last time I was in Politics and Prose (to buy a gift). But this book jumped off the shelf at me and despite the fact that I had never heard of the author and had not even added it to my "to-read" list, it looked too interesting to leave there. And I'm so glad I picked it up!

The tragic story is beautifully crafted -- alternating between vignettes of a young, healthy, not-always-happy (but mostly-in-love) couple and the f...more I had never heard of this book and was not looking for a book for myself the last time I was in Politics and Prose (to buy a gift). But this book jumped off the shelf at me and despite the fact that I had never heard of the author and had not even added it to my "to-read" list, it looked too interesting to leave there. And I'm so glad I picked it up!

The tragic story is beautifully crafted -- alternating between vignettes of a young, healthy, not-always-happy (but mostly-in-love) couple and the final weeks of the wife's life as her loving husband cares for her and honors her final wishes. At the end of the book, I felt like it was a friend of the family who had died, I felt that I knew them both so well. The author does a fantastic job of describing the pain of the end-of-life decisions the couple must face and of conveying the panic in living every moment of those final days to the fullest. And it is not at all incongruous that he intersperses these final days with stories of trials and triumphs in the couple's dating and married life.

I don't think my review can do this book justice. I loved his descriptions. I was sad to think that most of this book was likely based on his true story with his own wife. After I finished the book I read some other reviews and learned that Yglesias had been interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air and I wanted to listen to the interview before posting my review. It turns out that the majority of the book is, in fact, a true story and that he wrote it as fiction to give himself some creative license -- particularly in remembering dialogue from 30 years prior -- but that it was more true than I had imagined. The interview is available here. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/st... I would suggest listening to it after reading the book, though, because although the end is not a surprise, it is better to have the experience through the book first and then to hear the back story. One thing that surprised me about the interview is that they focused so much on the act of caring for a loved one whose body has failed her, and who has endured a bunch of very extreme and repulsive interventions to enable her to keep living. I found it much less surprising that a spouse would not be repulsed by his partner's body than the interviewer did, and I was sad that she focused more on that than she did on the beauty of the descriptions and the images of love that jump off the pages, despite revelations that the marriage had not always been an easy or pleasant one.

My only criticism is that, especially at the beginning, some tighter copy editing would have prevented some grammar mistakes and some duplicated descriptions. (Descriptions that seemed apt or catchy the first time, seemed trite the second or third time I read them...) But the book is so powerful that this will not be my most prominent memory of it.(less)

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Apr 03, 2011 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

This book came to me from blog hopping online one day. The author wrote a blog post and I liked his writing so much that I checked out one of his books. It’s a novel that reads like a memoir. It’s based on his real life and follows a couple from before they actually met (from the man’s point of view) through to the ending of the marriage (I won’t give away how, but you will know almost right away). It tells the story in chapters alternating between the courtship and the present ending of their m...more

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Aug 06, 2009 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars

“A Happy Marriage” is autobiography thinly disguised as fiction. This is an incredibly moving and intensely literary book. Mr. Ygelsias has written a profoundly personal book, which exhibits his powers as a storyteller in a manner evidencing respect for his audience as well as his subject. This is an astonishing feat, considering that he has included ridiculously personal details of his marriage without seeming to betray the essential emotional intimacies of his married life.

I read it because I...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Tina Lender rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There have been plenty of summaries written already, so I won't repeat them. Bottom line is I kept waiting to connect with the characters. I normally like whiny, neurotic characters, but Enrique tested my nerves. An artist with extremely fragile ego and a chip on his shoulder to boot. He tells this woman he loves her (twice) practically on the first date, then is resentful when he's soon stuck in a middle-class existence with a baby and wife. I did sympathize with his sexual problems, both befor...more There have been plenty of summaries written already, so I won't repeat them. Bottom line is I kept waiting to connect with the characters. I normally like whiny, neurotic characters, but Enrique tested my nerves. An artist with extremely fragile ego and a chip on his shoulder to boot. He tells this woman he loves her (twice) practically on the first date, then is resentful when he's soon stuck in a middle-class existence with a baby and wife. I did sympathize with his sexual problems, both before and after the marriage.

Margaret is a mystery. We get no real sense of what her interests were, aside from discussing strollers and doing some private painting. (Really? The woman worked at Newsweek. It isn't like she didn't have outside influences.) We are told she wasn't much of a conversationalist. She is controlling. Her teeth needed to be bonded (this is mentioned more than once.) He makes sure to point out she was better educated, but not as clever as he was and without much of a sense of humor. There's a streak of competitiveness and a whiff of wounded emasculation coming from the author at all times, from his impotence during their early courtship to later, when his in-laws buy him a house when his novels aren't selling.

The chapters on Margaret's death are moving and scary. Even there, though, I feel the authors tries very hard to emphasize how hard he worked for his wife. I never got the feeling he actually fell in love with HER again, as he says. It felt more like he fell in love with himself and his new image as her strong savior.

I also feel the Yglesias did his wife a disservice by revealing his affair after she died. He said on NPR he waited to write a book about marriage until she was dead. Well, if my husband revealed an year-long affair with my old college buddy - and told all the gory details of my bodily functions as I died of cancer - even after I died, I'd come back to haunt him.

With the shots taken at his mother-in-law and his own mother, also dead, I can't help but wonder if this book was a long, not-so-subtle screw you to the women in his life.
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Nov 08, 2012 Elizabeth R rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: bookgroup

I thought this would be hard to read, especially after reading Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett. But it was really a lovely, moving book. You'll learn about how Enrique and Margaret met, see their courtship, and fast forward 20+ years later to when she is dying from bladder cancer. The chapters alternate between the young Enrique and Margaret's courtship and the final preparations for the dying process. While it may sound grim, it is truly a beautiful piece of writing, very heartfelt, and realis...more

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Jul 05, 2010 Jann Barber rated it 3 of 5 stars

From what I understand, this book is autobiographical. The author dropped out of high school and had his first book published at the age of 17; so did the protagonist. In the book, the wife's name was Margaret and she died after battling cancer; the author's wife was also named Margaret and also died of cancer.
The book was written in alternating chapters. One part of the story was about Margaret's final wishes and her final weeks, alternating with chapters about how the two characters met and ho...more

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Sep 23, 2009 Stacy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 03, 2009 Bookmarks Magazine rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nov-dec-2009

Yglesias is brutally honest in this deeply personal account of his thorny, but ultimately loving, marriage. He tells the parallel stories of the beginning and the end of this relationship "in something of a tour de force of novelistic architecture" (New York Times), which strikes a fine balance between the heady excitement of budding romance and the agonizing loss of enduring love. Though the story line may seem predictable at first, Yglesias throws in enough twists, surprises, and emotional urg...more

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About Rafael Yglesias

Rafael Yglesias (b. 1954) is a master American storyteller whose career began with the publication of his first novel, Hide Fox, and All After, at seventeen. Through four decades Yglesias has produced numerous highly acclaimed novels, including the New York Times bestseller Fearless, which was adapted into the film starring Jeff Bridges and Rosie Perez. He lives on New York City’s Upper East Side.

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Quotes from A Happy Marriage

“Perhaps they assumed that he would have a hard time putting her first. Perhaps they had not understood that for a long time she had come first with him, that for many years she had been his heart's home and his mind's anchor and that fighting to keep her alive was essential to preserving his own soul.” — 4 people liked it

“... and that did it. That brought those depthless blue eyes within a foot, perhaps six inches, maybe even closer, and something happened inside Enrique, like a guitar string suddenly unstrung. There was a shock and a vibration in his heart, a palpable break inside the cavity of his chest. He had dropped out of high school and never took a class in anatomy, but he did know that the cardiovascular system wasn't supposed to react as if it were the source and center of feeling. And yet he would have sworn to all and sundry - not that he expected to admit it to anyone - that Margaret, or at least her bright blue eyes, had just snapped his brittle heart.” — 1 person liked it

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