Is happiness a prerequisite for marriage?

Is it possible for a marriage to withstand the moral ambiguities and difficult circumstances that life throws your way?

Elizabeth Nunez’s exceptional 2003 novel, “Grace,” appears to grapple with those two critical questions. Grace tells the story of a married couple, Justin and Sally Peters, who have hit a rough patch in their marriage. Justin is a highbrow professor at a local city college in Brooklyn, while Sally is a schoolteacher. Sally is turning forty and trying to find meaning in her life beyond being a wife and mother to their four-year-old daughter, Giselle.

The novel exposes the subtle discontents beneath the surface of a marriage that appears idyllic to the outside world, while Justin’s unease escalates with the inclusion of Sally’s close friend, Anna. Also, Justin’s past with a professor colleague at the college adds another layer to the story as well. I must confess I found the main characters unlikable, yet the author’s masterful writing style made it impossible to put the book down. The flowing rhythm of her sentences was captivating; before I realized it, I had consumed fifty to sixty pages during each reading session. By the end of the story, I could see why Nunez chose the novel’s title.

Domestic fiction, though a familiar subgenre in literature, can still offer novel perspectives when an author crafts it in a way that challenges our preconceptions. I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate “Grace” in my twenties or thirties, as I lacked the life experience to understand that a marriage can encompass multiple truths simultaneously. Now that I’m fifty-four, I can appreciate a novel like this without being self-righteous about either side.

I found out about this novel after she passed in November 2024 and read that she had a distinguished career as a novelist and academic. Sometimes it can take a writer’s death for their work to come to your attention. Grace has become my entry point to her novels, and I will be reading more of her work. It will be one of my favorite reads this year and definitely should be a pick for book clubs.