I Married You for Happiness Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, Schrödinger's Cat and our BookBrowse Review of I Married You for Happiness.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. In the opening pages, we meet a widow who is stunned to lose the husband she was devoted to and depended on. What happens in the narrative to modify this first impression? Also, discuss how Nina grieves: "With her free hand, she touches her face to make sure" (p. 4); "Again she thinks about those dark-skinned, Mediterranean women, women in veils, women with long messy hair, and she wishes she could beat her breast and wail" (p. 6).



2. Does Nina seem like a person bent on truth? Does she reproach herself for being deceptive? When? For what? Is she ever dishonest with herself?



3. How do Philip the mathematician and Nina the artist respond to each other's fields? With respect? Curiosity? Talk about particular times when their worlds intersect. For instance, there is the Pi-reciting dinner, and remember Nina's portrait-painting of her husband when Philip said, "I read somewhere that art is about navigating the space between what you know and what you see.... I look for clarity, Nina tells him" (p. 184).

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Grove Press. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.