A Happy Marriage: A Novel
A raw novel tracing a thirty-year marriage, with domestic intimacy, compromise, desire, and grief laid bare.
Work Information
A raw novel tracing a thirty-year marriage, with domestic intimacy, compromise, desire, and grief laid bare.
A raw novel tracing a thirty-year marriage, with domestic intimacy, compromise, desire, and grief laid bare.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Scribner
- Published
- 2009-07-07
- Pages
- 384 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 15.24 x 3.05 x 22.86 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781439102305
- ISBN-10
- 1439102309
- Price
- 16655 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Genre Fiction/Biographical
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.
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 seventeen. 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, and The Wisdom of Perversity . 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.
Reviews
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Emotivo… pero deprimente
Nunca dejo opiniones negativas, pero este libro me ha hecho sufrir y pasar muy malos ratos. Es cierto que te interpela emocionalmente, te hace reflexionar y presenta una realidad, pero aún así, a mí no me ha compensado y por primera vez hubiera preferido no leerlo.
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Seriously Good Literature
"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 loved the movie "Fearless," which Raphael Yglesias wrote, and because I've been a reader of his son Matthew's blog for many years. (It was Matt's blog that informed me of the book's existence.) Although Mr. Yglesias' life is one of great accomplishment and privilege, he has managed to craft an autobiographical narrative that bridges enormous gaps of status. I wept repeatedly while reading this book. It is a mature and phenomenally insightful story of marriage, love, and raw human need. I recommend it unreservedly.
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Brave and heartbreaking
This is Sue Hampton, using my husband's account. I finished this book a little while ago, having bought it because it was recommended in The Big Issue, my favourite magazine. I understand why. This detailed portrait of a long, slow death is so vivid that it's the closest I've ever come to virtual bereavement myself - or, in fact, since I identified so strongly with Margaret, to dying. Which is not what everyone wants from a novel, but which makes this a courageous attempt to tackle the unbearable head-on. Yglesias is an interesting writer. His style is uneven, sometimes a little stilted in its formality, sometimes excessive in its flourishes, but often satisfying, rich, sharp or musical, and above all, honest. I didn't especially like Enrique and I might not choose Margaret for a friend. The life they lived is in many ways very different from mine. But the universals of love and loss are explored so intimately that in the end, nothing else matters.
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I knew this guy
When I saw the NY Times review, I recognized the author as the same kid that attended Horace Mann with me in the late-1960's; I had never read any of his works but this book picqued my interest. Even in seventh grade,Rafael Yglesias(Raf) knew he was or wanted to be a writer. He already held our poor English teachers in contempt as they struggled to challenge the precocious pubescents at our then all-male prestigious private school in the Bronx. Raf's claim to fame was his dropping out of high school ( after dropping out of Horace Mann) to publish his first novel at age 16. A Happy Marriage ultimately is about a sad 30 year marriage. My wife wondered what the parents of Raf's deceased wife said about the book, which revealed early infidelity. (I presume the whole story is auto-biographical). Yglesias was able and willing, however, to dig deep into those dark places few people concede to visit. It is easy to write poorly but a great challenge for most of us to write well. This book is a good and fast read about love found and lost. It made me cry here and cringe there. If you have a fatal disease, and wonder what your healthy spouse's perspective might be of it, this maybe illuminating.
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It's up there with my 5 all time favorites
Every once in a while, I find a book that makes me want to cancel the rest of what's going on in my daily life and just read. This is one of those books. I could not put it down. I loved the way it was written, and I felt the character development was some of the best I have read, but for me personally, this book touched me on so many levels. Perhaps because I had experienced loosing my mom the same way Greg and Max lost theirs, and the process that Margaret chose to control her ending was almost exactly the way she did it...reading about Enrique gave me a window to see what all my dad had to go through. Now, I am grown, and married with a bunch of kids,,,and there is a whole other story about marriage, family, how we develop and make choices, etc. I just think the author nailed the emotional diversity in one's family dynamics...he could have been writing about our family. I hated to see it come to an end. I am telling everyone I know to read it..I still think about it all the time even though I am finished. I think there is something in this book for everyone to read and love.