An American Marriage

AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE

by Tayari Jones

Award: Aspen Words Prize Winner 2019, Women's Prize Winner 2019

 

Nominations: BookTube Longlist 2019, Carnegie Longlist 2019, Dublin Finalist 2020, Goodreads Finalist 2018, LA Times Finalist 2018, National Book Longlist 2018, Oprah Book Club 2018

 

Date Read: February 26, 2021

 

This entire novel has beauty and sorrow, wisdom and ignorance and brief but profound glimpses of the American black experience. Roy and Celestial have only been married for a year and a half before Roy is incarcerated for a crime he didn’t commit. As Celestial says, before their marriage could really take route.

 

During the entire time of Roy’s imprisonment, he holds the thought of reclaiming the one thing that he still can: his marriage. His career and family, specifically his mother, are irretrievably lost, but he knows Celestial is still waiting. For him, time is standing still.

 

But for Celestial, time is definitely marching forward until Roy has been gone for more than twice the time they were married for and she anticipates Roy serving the full 10 years he was sentenced for. As any rational human would, she turns to a lifelong friend for support and that support blooms into ease and comfort and a quieter love than she anticipated in her youth.

 

Once Roy is released, of course there is going to be consequences for a man wrongly imprisoned whose wife is no longer his. 

 

This book is about so much for than marriage, however. It is about family and fatherhood, love and commitment, the changes that come with age and the endurance of injustice among a community that lives with the anticipation, nay expectation, of chronic and systemic injustice. Absolutely stunning novel.

 

“Six or twelve… That’s your fate as a black man. Carried by six or judged by twelve.” Walter

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Gentleman In Moscow

Image
A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW by Amor Towles   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2018, Goodreads Finalist 2016, Kirkus Finalist 2016   Date Read: February 24, 2017   From Kirkus Reviews:   “Sentenced to house arrest in Moscow's Metropol Hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal for writing a poem deemed to encourage revolt, Count Alexander Rostov nonetheless lives the fullest of lives, discovering the depths of his humanity.   Inside the elegant Metropol, located near the Kremlin and the Bolshoi, the Count slowly adjusts to circumstances as a "Former Person." He makes do with the attic room, to which he is banished after residing for years in a posh third-floor suite. A man of refined taste in wine, food, and literature, he strives to maintain a daily routine, exploring the nooks and crannies of the hotel, bonding with staff, accepting the advances of attractive women, and forming what proves to be a deeply meaningful relationship with a spirited young girl, Nina. "We are bound to find comfo
Read more

An Island

Image
AN ISLAND by Karen Jennings   Nomination: Booker Longlist 2021   Date Read: December 10, 2022   A short but mighty novel, An Island explores the concept of home, family, identity, the impact of political upheaval and the immigrant experience, when one’s suffering is so intense they move from one shitty country to the next. Samuel has finally found a peaceful home on an island somewhere off the coast of Africa. He was hired as a lighthouse keeper and after a tumultuous life, most of which was spent in prison as a political prisoner, he has carved out a life for himself on this island, enjoying a tranquil existence that basks in the quiet tasks of daily living.   Only after exploring Samuel’s life does the reader understand why such an isolated, spare and lonely existence satisfy him, with no desire to escape but only to grow deeper roots. His life witnessed the end of the British occupation, the installation of a brutal dictator and yet another dictator after the first was poisoned. Sam
Read more

The Changeling

Image
THE CHANGELING by Victor LaValle   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2019, LA Times Finalist 2017, PEN/Jean Stein Finalist 2018   Date Read: July 21, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “A  tragedy thrusts a mourning father into peculiar, otherworldly corners of New York City. When Apollo and Emma have their baby, Brian, it feels like both reward and challenge for the new dad. Apollo, the son of a single mother, had been scraping by as a bookseller who hunts estate and garage sales for rare first editions, so even the unusual circumstance of Brian's birth (in a stalled subway train) seems like a blessing, as does the way Apollo stumbles across a first edition of  To Kill a Mockingbird  (inscribed by Harper Lee to Truman Capote, no less) shortly after. But after some young-parent squabbles and inexplicable images on their smartphones foreshadow trouble, the story turns nightmarish: Apollo finds himself tied up and beaten by Emma, then forced to listen to the sounds of Brian’s murder. LaValle has
Read more