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A happy marriage : a novel
Yglesias, Rafael
Adult Fiction YGLESIA
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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
From Library Journal:
Novelist/screenwriter Yglesias's first work of fiction in 13 years was inspired by his relationship with his late wife, Margaret, who died in 2004. It tells the story of Enrique -Sabas and his wife, also named Margaret, who struggle to learn about each other and then relearn it all through the ebbs and flows of their adult lives. Between the start and the stop of their 30-year marriage is love, heartbreak, cruelty, redemption, forgiveness, and, finally, acceptance. The book is structured in alternating chapters, the first chapter introducing the very first meeting between Enrique and Margaret and the second set in the months leading up to Margaret's death from cancer. Audie Award winner Grover Gardner (grovergardner.blogspot.com) skillfully conveys the small and large tensions and drama that encapsulate this and most every other long-term relationship. For appreciators of literary fiction interested in more deeply exploring the subjects of relationships, cancer, death, and dying.-J. Sara Paulk, Fitzgerald-Ben Hill Cty. Lib., GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Yglesias, Rafael
Adult Fiction YGLESIA
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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) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
From Library Journal:
Novelist/screenwriter Yglesias's first work of fiction in 13 years was inspired by his relationship with his late wife, Margaret, who died in 2004. It tells the story of Enrique -Sabas and his wife, also named Margaret, who struggle to learn about each other and then relearn it all through the ebbs and flows of their adult lives. Between the start and the stop of their 30-year marriage is love, heartbreak, cruelty, redemption, forgiveness, and, finally, acceptance. The book is structured in alternating chapters, the first chapter introducing the very first meeting between Enrique and Margaret and the second set in the months leading up to Margaret's death from cancer. Audie Award winner Grover Gardner (grovergardner.blogspot.com) skillfully conveys the small and large tensions and drama that encapsulate this and most every other long-term relationship. For appreciators of literary fiction interested in more deeply exploring the subjects of relationships, cancer, death, and dying.-J. Sara Paulk, Fitzgerald-Ben Hill Cty. Lib., GA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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