I read a review of Happy Marriage by Rafael Yglesias in one of the many book review sources I skim. It wasn’t an author I had read but it sounded good and I put a “hold” on it.
Although fiction, it is an autobiographical account of his nearly 30-year marriage told in alternating chapters as Margaret succumbs to cancer. The novel opens in 1975 when Enrique Sabas, a high-school dropout who has become the darling of the literary world with his first novel, meets Margaret Cohen, a slightly older, beautiful, budding graphic designer who will become the love of his life. The novel moves through their three decades together as Margaret says good-bye to family and friends and prepares to die.
It is brutally honest as her health declines and her husband becomes her caregiver but a good balance between their young romance, raising a family, losing a parent, a brief affair, and ultimately her physical decline.
It’s heartbreaking, not depressing.
Book
Happy Marriage
9781439102305