A Happy Marriage: A Novel [Hardcover]

Rafael Yglesias (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 7, 2009

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 and moving story about a thirty- year marriage, inspired by his own relationship with his wife, who died in 2004.

Told from the husband’s point of view, with revelatory and sometimes disarming candor, A Happy Marriage is the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife Margaret, alternating between the first three weeks of their acquaintance (a comic and romantic misadventure) and the bittersweet final weeks of Margaret’s life as she says goodbye to her family, friends, and children. Laced throughout with intimate recollections of moments of crises and joy from the middle years of their relationship, the novel charts the ebb and flow of marriage, illuminating the mysteries and magic of marital love.

Neither sentimental nor cynical, and written with an intense devotion to character and emotional suspense, A Happy Marriage reveals a partnership that brings maturity and great pleasure to the lives of two people. Bold, elegiac, and stunningly vivid, A Happy Marriage will break every reader’s heart—and perhaps infuse some marriages with greater love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Yglesias (Fearless) delivers his first novel in 13 years, an autobiographical and devastatingly raw appraisal of a nearly 30-year marriage. As the novel opens in 1975, 21-year-old Enrique Sabas, a high school–dropout literary wunderkind, has just met Margaret Cohen, a vivacious, beautiful budding graphic designer who will become the love of his life. Enrique and Margaret's romantic and sexual misadventures during the first awkward weeks of their courtship are interspersed with scenes from the couple's three decades together before Margaret succumbs to cancer: raising children, losing a parent, the temptation of an easy affair. Margaret's physical decline and Enrique's acknowledgment of guilt, inadequacy and a selfish desire to postpone his loss are described in blunt, heart-wrenching detail, and Enrique's ongoing struggles to define the nature of masculinity, the significance of art and the value of marriage add a philosophical layer to the domestic snapshots. Although the couple's privileged lifestyle can get in the way of the reader-character bond, the texture of their marriage and the pain of their loss will be familiar to anyone who has shared a long-term relationship. (July)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

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 urgency to keep readers turning the pages, and his fully realized—if not always likeable—characters are wholly convincing. A "profound deliberation on the nature of love, marriage, and the process of dying" (New York Times), this visceral, poignant novel will break your heart.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Scribner; First Edition edition (July 7, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439102309
• ISBN-13: 978-1439102305
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (106 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #515,749 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rafael Yglesias is an American novelist and screenwriter, the son of writers Jose and Helen Yglesias. He dropped out of high school upon publication of his first novel, Hide Fox, And All After in 1972 at age 17. He is the author of nine novels, including A Happy Marriage, winner of the 2009 Los Angeles Times Fiction Prize, Dr. Neruda's Cure For Evil and Fearless, which he adapted for the screen. He also wrote the screenplays for Death And The Maiden, Les Miserables, From Hell, and Dark Water. He has two sons: Matthew Yglesias, a Fellow at the Center For American Progress, public intellectual and author of Heads In The Sand; Nicholas Yglesias is a fantasy novelist who has recently completed Succession, the first of a three volume trilogy. Rafael lives in the city of his birth, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

75 of 77 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully told, June 14, 2009

By 

Reader "piratebean" (Newport, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Happy Marriage: A Novel (Hardcover)

Yglesias's novel is beautifully wrought, with meticulously crafted characters moving through the heartbreaking denouement of a thirty-year romance. Enrique, the protagonist, is saddled with the burden of herding his family through the final days of his wife Margaret's life. In between the episodes of final goodbyes and medical crises, the reader sees how their romance started and how it unfolded through their years of happy marriage.

Of course, it could hardly be happy in the sense of blissfully moving from one joyous moment to the next. They have their problems, including the near dissolution of their marriage in its early years. What makes the reader cheer from the sidelines, even while it is revealed that Enrique had an affair, is the way he desperately wants to tell his wife, at the end of her life, how much he loves her, how much her very existence has made life worth living. His fear, as he coordinates a social calendar of final goodbyes for her friends and family, is that he won't have a chance to tell her. This fear is pervasive, and seeing how these final days unfold make the novel engrossing.

Yglesias employs beautiful turns of phrase throughout the novel, putting words to feelings that many have experienced while dealing with the illness and death of a loved one. Enrique reveals how difficult it is to help other people cope emotionally, when he is trying so hard himself to do that as well: they were "demanding he put Band-Aids on their scrapes while he was bleeding to death" (88). Enrique deals with the demands of family, particularly Margaret's parents concern with funeral arrangements. In passages like this, Yglesias shines in describing Margaret's mother's need to control the arrangements, to have them just the way her family has always had them, because the need for something familiar would almost make one feel safe in the midst of the uncertainty of a life without Margaret (184).

There are witty passages as well, like Enrique's internal debate about selecting pants to wear on his first date with Margaret (129). Enrique and Margaret are great conversational foils, never devolving into the pattern of saying the same things to each other repeatedly, nor remaining silent because, after all these years, there is nothing left to say. Their relationship is alive and vibrant, and they still can surprise each other when they open their mouths. This is something beautiful to see, and it makes the ending of the novel so hard to bear.

The first chapter didn't draw me in to the novel the way that the second - and each subsequent chapter - did. I do not mention this as a critique, but rather so that readers know that they might not be enthralled on first meeting the characters, but it is worth hanging on for a few more pages to let this story get a running start.

I think the great strength of this novel is the detailed expression of the emotions that swirl around the beginning and end of this marriage. These characters are vibrantly alive, and will remain lodged in my mind for some time now. It is an excellent read, even if it leaves the reader in tears.

32 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Meeting of Bodies and Souls (3.5 Stars), July 12, 2009

By 

Karie Hoskins "karieh" (Everett, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Happy Marriage: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

This is a difficult book to review in that while billed as a novel - certainly seems to match up with the author's life. The story of Enrique Sabas and his relationship with his wife Margaret seems a close mirror to that of author Rafael Yglesias and his wife Margaret.

So it's impossible to know how much is fiction...but I will try and write this based on what happens in the book.

"A Happy Marriage" - it's a title that I first assumed described a perfect marriage. Instead, it's about a real marriage - full of sorrows and mistakes and flaws and pain. But full of joy and love and miracles as well. It's about the emotional ties between two people who were part of each other's lives for nearly thirty years, and the physical nature of human life and love.

The story is told from Enrique's point of view - and while the reader comes to know Margaret through him, it is only his version of Margaret that we see. The woman he fell in love with, the woman who became the mother to his children, the woman he cared for while she was suffering and dying. We see how his relationship with her changes him, how his knowing of her alters his life forever.

The book follows two timelines - one as Enrique and Margaret meet and one that takes place in the final weeks of Margaret's life. We watch them come together and we see as they are separated by her cancer.

"He didn't think about her dead; he didn't contemplate a future without Margaret. He understood that she would die, and die soon, but he also knew that he didn't truly believe her life would end."

As we watch the young Enrique become captivated by the young Margaret, we know, as they do not, where their story will end. This knowledge taints even the most joyous moments of their young love and marriage, and makes one want to admonish them during the hardships that "you're wasting precious time!"

Their marriage and feelings for one another go through the inevitable (and some not so predictable) ups and downs, and always the feelings seem real. While as a wife and mother, I come from the other side of the coin; I felt the authenticity of Enrique's feelings about his wife and sons. There is certainly a greater emphasis put on the physical aspects of their relationship than many women might have placed and I found this very illuminating. But there is such love there, such a feeling that without her, there would be no him.

"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."

I have to admit to being surprised that I did not cry while reading this book. I'm a pretty emotional person, and given that the book is based in reality - I expected to choke up at the very least. But in the end, I think I took more from what these people had than what they lost. Given that when I started the book, I already knew the ending, I suppose I took more from their journey than from its conclusion.

A perfect marriage is unachievable. A happy marriage is a triumph beyond measure.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting way to tell the story, June 28, 2009

By 

sb-lynn (Santa Barbara, California United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: A Happy Marriage: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Brief summary and review, no spoilers:

The story starts off in 1972, when a mutual friend introduces Enrique Sabas to the vivacious and pretty, Margaret Cohen. It was love at first sight for Enrique.

Enrique comes from a rather bohemian family of writers and he too becomes a novelist, dropping out of high school at age 16 to be a published author.

Margaret comes from a more traditional upper middle-class Jewish family and she has always been at odds with her controlling mother. When she meets Enrique he is 21, and she is 3 years older. She has inherited some of her mother's controlling nature.

This book is essentially the story of their relationship - the story of a marriage. The book starts when they first meet and from almost the very beginning (so no spoiler) , we know that it will end over 30 years later with Margaret dying of cancer. And although the title is A Happy Marriage, at times it is anything but that. In many ways this book is a realistic look at the hardships of any marriage, and the difficulties endured by any two different people who share their lives together.

I really enjoyed the way the story is told. It is told in alternating chapters at different points in time. We start off when they first meet, and then hop around a bit in time as we learn what happened during the marriage. The other chapters take place in 2005 when Margaret is dying, and the heartbroken Enrique is there to take care of her and help her end her life on her terms.

This technique really adds an interesting layer to the story, and I really enjoyed the way Yglesias was able to foreshadow events in the novel. It really made this book a page-turner, and I found myself reading and finishing it way too late last night.

I do have just a couple of quibbles. At least for me, I'm not sure I was ever able to really understand their connection - in fact, why they loved and felt so connected to each other. The story fell just short of that for me and I would've liked one key chapter at a therapists office to be resolved. But this may be just me, and it certainly is no reason to not read and fully enjoy this book.

One last quibble, and this is a little one, but Margaret must have been described as having amazing blue/azure/Pacific Ocean eyes a hundred times. Or at least it felt like it. I actually found it distracting after a bit.

Still, I do recommend this novel. I also recommend the author's earlier book, Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil. That was a page-turner as well, and a great book for book club discussion.