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Book Summary and Reviews of A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias

A Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias

A Happy Marriage

by Rafael Yglesias

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  • Published:
  • Jul 2009, 384 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

A Happy Marriage is both intimate and expansive: It is the story of Enrique Sabas and his wife, Margaret, a novel that alternates between the romantic misadventures of the first weeks of their courtship and the final months of Margaret's life as she says good-bye to her family, friends, and children - and to Enrique. Spanning thirty years, this achingly honest story is about what it means for two people to spend a lifetime together - and what makes a happy marriage.

Yglesias's career as a novelist began in 1970 when he wrote an autobiographical novel at sixteen, hailed by critics for its stunning and revelatory depiction of adolescence. A Happy Marriage, his first work of fiction in thirteen years, was inspired by his relationship with his wife, Margaret, who died in 2004. Bold, elegiac, and emotionally suspenseful, even though we know what happens, Yglesias's beautiful novel will break every reader's heart - while encouraging all of us with its clear-eyed evocation of the enduring value of marriage.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"[A] devastatingly raw appraisal of a nearly 30-year marriage...heart-wrenching." - Publishers Weekly

"[Yglesias] provides a moving and emotional picture of how a successful marriage comes to be - and ends." - Library Journal

"A would-be tragedy that plays unsuccessfully on the inherent fascination with sex and death." - Kirkus Reviews

"Yglesias mixes passion and pain in this deep and searing story of love. With unflinching honesty, he reveals the resilience of the human spirit in the face of illness and loss." -- Jerome Groopman, author of How Doctors Think

This information about A Happy Marriage was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Rafael Yglesias

Rafael Yglesias is an American novelist and screenwriter. He dropped out of high school upon publication of his first novel in 1972 at age 17. He is the author of nine novels, including 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 grown sons and lives in New York's Greenwich Village.

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