I Married You For Happiness – Lily Tuck

A riveting and deeply moving portrait of love and marriage.“His hand is growing cold, still she holds it.”The story unfolds over a single night, as Nina sits at the bedside of her husband Philip, whose sudden and unexpected death is the reason for her lonely vigil. Too shocked yet to grieve, she recalls the defining moments of their long marriage, beginning with their first meeting in Paris. As the reader is drawn through select memories – real and imagined – of events that occurred in places as distant and disparate as France, Wisconsin, Hong Kong, Mexico, and California, Tuck reveals the intimacies, dark secrets and overwhelming joys that shaped the lives of Nina and Philip.Moving, powerful, and utterly engaging, ‘I Married You for Happiness’ is a riveting portrait of a forty-three-year-old marriage, an elegant elegy to a husband and a meditation on how chance can affect both a life and love.