I Married You for Happiness

Phillip has unexpectedly died, and Nina, his wife, sits by his bedside holding thoughtful vigil during this one night. In a kind of wandering, stream of consciousness sort of way, through random bits of memories, Nina processes their 40 years of love and marriage together. Philip was a mathematician, and Nina, an artist, and that sets up an interesting dynamic for the pair, who meet and fall in love in Paris. As Nina’s mind wanders, her thoughts are both honest and tender.

I have read Lily Tuck’s work before, but feared this spare novel would be a bit morbid, depressing, or perhaps too intense. I passed it by in hardcover, but the attraction eventually proved too great. It’s a believable narrative; a lovely, tender, completely show more absorbing story—very hard to pull away from once started. And I think, as the book blurb suggests, the reader is left wondering how much of our lives is ordered by intent... or chance? show less

Beautifully and sensually lush, highly intelligent and emotionally charged. A retrospective from the wife's POV after her husband suddenly dies. Philip is a brilliant but narcissistic mathematician and she is a painter.

They live active social lives full of the mysteries of math, art, music literature, love and sex, travel, parenting, fine dining and lots of drinking.

While they are very close, he always tries to coerce her into understanding complex the mathematical theories he teaches to his college class. Is he simply sharing what excites him or is he showing off his capabilities and letting her know he is the MAN, the math man that is. Oddly, and quite shocking, he is also a bit of a slob leaving his dirty clothes on the floor for show more her to pick up.

How Tuck controls the many different moving parts of this complicated couple, their dialog, actions, and thoughts so gracefully and poetically amazes me.

Coincidentally, I am also reading Maria Popova's The Universe in Verse which is about the juxtaposition of science and poetry displaying the awesome splendor of our world and universe AS WELL as the many worlds and universes that surround us.

Another coincidence is that on page 126 of "I Married You.." there is a reference to quantum mechanics reminding me of another book I recently read, a sci-fi novel, Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. It goes fully down the rabbit hole of the potential of creating multiple lives and multiple universes.

I'm definitely impressed with Lily Tuck even if I didn't understand all the math possiblities. Wish I did. Her writing, characterizations, plot and depth of details is captivating. show less

Exquisitely written story of a mostly loving marriage through vignettes as the wife looks back on their years together while at her husband's deathbed - from National Book Award Winner Lily Tuck[b:The News from Paraguay|77691|The News from Paraguay|Lily Tuck|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348259939s/77691.jpg|1325348] He is a mathematician and the book is peppered with his explanations of probability, time, numbers, Einstein. Nina is an artist and their contrasting disciplines enliven the marriage (and the story)in this quiet dream of a novel.

Exquisitely written story of a mostly loving marriage through vignettes as the wife looks back on their years together while at her husband's deathbed - from National Book Award Winner Lily Tuck[b:The News from Paraguay|77691|The News from Paraguay|Lily Tuck|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1348259939s/77691.jpg|1325348] He is a mathematician and the book is peppered with his explanations of probability, time, numbers, Einstein. Nina is an artist and their contrasting disciplines enliven the marriage (and the story)in this quiet dream of a novel.

I am a member of the Women's National Book Association. Here in the Charlotte chapter, we have been tossing around the idea of starting a book club for some time now but we weren't sure exactly how we'd go about it and what we'd read. And then I thought about the fact that we as a national organization create a list of Great Group Reads for October's National Reading Group month. Yup. We had a pre-selected list of books that should be ideal for reading groups all year long. And so our new book club was born, one focused solely on the list of Great Group Reads. The first book the newly formed group chose to read was Lily Tuck's I Married You For Happiness, a rumination on the nature of marriage, loss, and love.

Just before the novel show more starts, Philip has come home from his job as a college math professor, gone upstairs to change before dinner, and died of an apparent heart attack. And so the story opens with Nina, his wife of 43 years, holding his cooling hand in their bedroom as she spends one last night beside her husband and remembering their life together. A final goodbye before the realities of death and its attendant needs take over. Taking place over the next eight hours, Nina's thoughts flit through her memories of their long marriage, the good times and the bad, the significant and the insignificant, the known and the unknown. She recalls the story of their marriage in all its banality and its uniqueness. Her memories come in flashes, a sort of chronological chaos, perhaps reflective of sudden bereavement and the reader can't necessarily place when in their life together each separate incident occurred. She gives a voice to Philip through her memories of his erudite lectures on probability and philosophy. As she muses on their life, there are reminders of the passing of the night as well, with nocturnal sounds, the knowledge of their congealing dinner on the table, her donning the red jacket Philip once gave her as a gift that she seldom wore, the lowering level of the wine bottle beside the bed.

The writing here is spare and yet beautiful. In many ways, as Nina tells her version of their marriage, there is a frozen remoteness to the tale and she doesn't shy away from her own petty jealousies and revenges even if she tells of them in the emotional vaccuum of shock. The acknowledgment of marriage as between two people but influenced by others and always flawed is clear here. But this acknowledgment doesn't preclude the contentment or overall quiet happiness of the couple, no matter what the intrusions of others, even including infidelities. This is not a novel about the vibrant joy of the newly-wed but about the sustaining peace of enduring love. It is a brief, affecting novel, very literary and eminently discussable for book clubs. show less

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Phillip is dead. By holding his gradually cooling hand, Nina, for one entire night, remembers the defining moments of their long life together as husband and wife. Private intimacies, dark secrets, and overwhelming joys. How to connect with someone, even after living forty years with them? All are individuals. Best we can hope for are momentary connections. Memories. Challenges. Threats to what we deem secure. Imagine spending the entire night alone with your dead spouse. Touching, but more importantly, something needed. And for those contiguous moments, too shocked to grieve.

Lily Tuck has bought me out. I am all in. Years ago, she writes, before they show more met, her husband accidentally kills a woman riding in his car with him. And later, her Nina has an affair with Phillip’s best friend. And then she has another with a son of a mutual friend, hiding both of these men from him. She also conceals the necessary abortion. Now Nina wonders to herself how many secrets Phillip had, and perhaps he had other hidden lovers as well. Now neither spouse will ever know due to their marital deceits.

For a long time after, Nina is convinced that the migraine headaches are a punishment for her lies.

It is understandable that Nina suffers. The truth is often hurtful especially when it remains in hiding. She is confessing this on the page. Too late for it to benefit Phillip, or to find out what it is Nina knows is missing. Series upon series of events meant to enliven and enjoy. Never a thoughtful concern at the time for consequences. Only careful methods managing to remain concealed. These episodes blended within periods of general satisfaction.

Tuck’s writing is comfortably relaxed and warm in its feeling. No complaints about that. She is gifted and extremely sexy. Sensual to the degree my imagination soars. It is easy to want to be with Lily Tuck in every possible pose. To want her to get naked too. She even explains the difference. But intimacy ends as soon as you get inside her. It then it becomes just sex and something dogs simply do with no conscience.

She sleeps with Jean-Marc only three or four times. Not enough to qualify as a proper affair.

As morning nears and the dawn of a new day Tuck’s prose quickens. Nina hurries. Her manners choppy and seeming nervous in some way. Phillips remains dead on the bed. Nina perhaps unsure of what she truly is.

How long ago everything seems to her.
And how unreal. show less

Enjoyable but probably forgettable quicker read. Plot is nothing original of course: woman's spouse dies after a long marriage and she reminisces about their past together. You've seen this in memoir and fictional forms plenty.

Tuck has not made the wife character here very compelling or sympathetic, aside from being deeply shaken by finding her husband passed away. She's a painter, though she has only ever sold a few paintings to friends. She was raped by her husband's cousin, but never says anything about it. She has had an affair for unclear reasons but that may have had to do with resentment over her husband's professional success. He's the far more interesting character. A mathematics professor, Tuck works in references and show more explanations of some mathematical and philosophical topics into the book which for me were something approaching its saving grace. show less