Two Marriages.(Brief article)(Book review)

All marriages are a gamble: how well do you need to understand your partner before you jump in the game? In this pair of novellas, Lopate examines the question first with humor, and then with melancholy. In the opening one, a middle-aged academic with a private income marries the Filipino nurse's aide who cared for his dying mother. True, he knows almost nothing about her past, but does that really matter, if he is madly in love? In the second, a middle-aged couple, whose ...