The Happy Marriage

Any novel titled The Happy Marriage is likely about one that isn't, and any novel by Ben Jelloun—the noted Moroccan author of Leaving Tangier who won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award—won't deal just in sentiment. Referencing Ingmar Bergman's Scenes from a Marriage and other films in chapter epigraphs, this stately novel is cinematic in scope as it captures the explosive relationship between a painter in Casablanca left paralyzed by a stroke and the wife he refuses to see, though they live in the same house. As the painter unfolds the story of their marriage, we learn that his wife is from a much less distinguished family (in a society where tribal custom still matters), and they have very different versions of their lives together. The wife's reaction to a manuscript her husband has written about their relationship reveals a woman of blazing anger and independence.