Four Star Book: A Happy Marriage

Like the other four star book so far this year, The Last Time They Met, Rafael Yglesias employs a structure to tell his tale of alternating chapters between when this couple first me and the end of their marriage. The first chapter is hilarious: Enrique (Rafael's transparent alter ego) is all of 21, living in the Village pre-gentrification in the mid-70s. He is a high school drop out. No, no, no. Don't expect a story of failure here; he dropped out to publish his first book at 16 and by 21 is awaiting the publication of his third novel. His friend introduces him to Margaret, a recent Cornell graduate, three years older than Enrique. It is love at first sight but his friend says she is clearly out of his league. Enrique feels doomed by his perceived inadequacies, mostly his lack of formal education and Ivy League polish.

The second chapter immediately changes tone from this lightness as Margaret is dying on the private floor of Sloan Kettering. (Knocking me for an additional loop, a good friend of mine from work was at Sloan Kettering the day I read this chapter.) Yglesias has immediately captivated his readers, creating a "need to know" -- how did their awkward first meeting bloom into marriage, what happened during the thirty intervening years. The poignancy of Margs suffering and fast decline is steadied with recollections from their marriage, warts and all. The all including a rebellious second son, controlling in-laws, Enrique's affair with one of her best friends, couple counseling, psychoanalysis, and plenty of career struggles.

All the characters are multidimensional, but it is the maturing and coming to fully understand the idiosyncrasies, role models and motives of each other that marks this book as more inviting and revealing than say Didion's Year of Magical Thinking, that now seems to me too self-centered and aloof.

I dog-eared so many corners that the book bulges at the top. If I tried to select my favorite quotes, this review would run on forever. After all the "artistic" (read small publication run) of his novels and the "sell out" of his talents to Hollywood screenwriting, it is ironic that Yglesias' first award winning book is this one. Yet it does not leave the reader with any feeling that he is profiting on his wife's death; it is his catharsis, his love song, with lyrics that strike everyone's heart.