I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck is a slim, elegant novel tracing memories back and forth over a forty year marriage. Tuck’s writing is spare and poetic and drew me in immediately.

It opens with the line “His hand is growing cold; still she holds it.” Nina’s husband Philip has just died, and she sits with him all night long remebering moments all throughout their long marriage, starting with their meeting in Paris.

Tuck moves back and forth through time and across continents, but never loses the thread of the story. We are drawn so deeply into the characters of Nina, a painter, and Philip, a mathematician. Through all their ups and downs, their marriage, their friendship, their love and their happiness ultimatley endured.

This is a lovely novel that I would recommend.