An American Marriage

Here's what I knew coming into the book: it was an Oprah's Book Club pick, and it was about the consequences and effects on a marriage of a black man's interaction with a racist and unjust legal system. I wanted to remain open to what the book, and Tayari Jones had to say, but my expectations were tempered a little bit by the cynical baggage I brought to it. I did not think I needed a book to teach me that the legal system in this country is racist, I did not need a book to teach me that the personal consequences were devastating (do you hear the cliché of that word? Our cliches fail us: devastating, heart breaking, immense, incomprehensible. They all relate to a quantity so vast as to challenge human scale, but they're equally so vague as to be almost bloodless).

This wasn't that book, it's better than that.

This book asks difficult, almost despairing questions. What happens when injustice is as commonplace, as unbounded, as inhuman in scale as the weather? What's the point of shaking your fist at the weather? Roy is imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, and once he has successfully appealed, the system may expunge his record and release him but it can never give him the the time lost, the life that he could have lived, back. Who pays him back for that time? It's not the state, and if it's not the state, then the only other people can pay are the people around him, but they've changed too.

It's the irreconcilable paradox of our prisons, the math that never penciled out in the first place. It's become so encumbered by history and politics and violence and profit that we delude ourselves into thinking that our reforms and incremental changes and civic religion of equality can fix it, but when you take it all away, the same conflict remains: if prisons are places of rehabilitation, at some point the prisoner becomes a different person than committed the crime. If prisons are places of retribution, who believes anymore that wasting years of human life does anything to mend what cannot be broken?

I loved the characters in this book. Not loved them in the sense of being good or likable people, I don't feel the need to judge them but nobody in the book is perfect. But Tayari Jones makes you believe in their dreams, believe that they are real, and that means that the painful realization that all of these dreams together did not add up was real too. Nobody was going to get exactly what they want, and even those that got most of what they want will have to live with the knowledge that some of it came from some pretty selfish choices.

The justice system, the whole legal system, is based on the ideas that everything is owned by someone, and when something is stolen, somebody has to pay. Except for the system itself. It never has to pay.

I received a galley of this book to read and review. This has not influenced my thoughts or opinions.

Damn, this book was good. It alternates perspectives across three characters, and it's ultimately a story about love. The love you feel at the beginning of a marriage. The love you feel when it's unrequited and then fulfilled. A fatherly love. The love of saying goodbye. Love that is lost.

This was about to be a 4-star book for me until the epilogue, which I felt really brought the book together and gave it a closure that I really appreciated. Jones has this incredible way with prose where she makes the most astute observations sometimes, and alternates them with language that is evocative yet compact.

An American Marriage is what I had hoped The Course of Love by Alain de Botton would be.

“Marriage is between two people. There is no studio audience.”

“One of the hurdles of adulthood is when holidays become measuring sticks against which you always fall short.”

“Hope woke up with a growl like a hungry stomach.”

“How did we end up here? My key works, but you won't let me in.”

“When I looked at her looking at me, I became what she thought I was.”

I selected An American Marriage for the library's first book club meeting for several reasons. It was at the top of almost everyone's Best Books of 2018 lists, every patron who read it only had good things to say, and someone donated a couple copies while I was trying to decide on a book.

I may have put off reading it for a few years if not for the book club because of all the hype surrounding it; it's hard to be disappointed when you don't have any expectations. An American Marriage fully lived up to its praise. I also wasn't drawn to the plot. It seemed like something I should read but probably wouldn't like. I enjoyed this book because it was driven by the characters and their relationships.

I wasn't, however, prepared for how frustrating the characters would be. I didn't like them, but I couldn't stop reading in order to find out what happened to them. And that's a testament to Tayari Jones' skill as an author. These people she crafted were flawed and real, but I wanted everything to turn out alright for them.

After reading this book it is not surprising to me that it was listed on so many “best of 2018” lists. It is a well written novel and was a great choice for a book club discussion. There was so much to consider and talk about. From the title to the characters and their struggles and choices to the questions it asks the reader to consider and contemplate, it's a great book.

More of a love story than I expected, but I was still never quite sure where it was all headed. Though beautifully written and heartbreaking, I didn't feel like I ever got to know enough about the characters to really root for any of them. It's worth the read, but if you're hoping for an examination of race, class, or the justice system, you might be disappointed.

The question of what marriage means, what it binds you to and entitles you to, is probably the most fundamental one at issue in Tayari Jones' An American Marriage. It's not the only one, though. The book follows Roy and Celestial, a young black couple married about a year and a half when we first meet them. Their future seems so bright: he's a promising marketing executive, she's an artist beginning to find success with her doll-making. They're thinking about having a baby soon when they leave their home in Atlanta and drive to rural Louisiana to spend the weekend with Roy's parents. Celestial has a bad feeling, but they write it off to nerves. It is the first night they're there that their whole world changes.

Roy is accused of raping a white woman, and even though he's innocent, he's sentenced to 12 years. They immediately appeal, but of course appeals take time, and while that process is ongoing Roy's continued imprisonment leaves both of them uprooted. After five years, the appeal is ultimately successful, but that time has left both Roy and Celestial different people, and they can't just pick up where they left off.

Any more than that about the plot probably reveals more than would be preferable...this is a book that's best to savor as it reveals itself to you (and usually I'm pretty pro-spoiler, but this does really feel like an exception). The truth is that there's not a lot of “plot” per se, but there's enough, and the work that Jones does with character and the way she uses those characters to poke at our understanding of powerful themes like marriage, and family more broadly, are brilliant. The instinct to find a “good guy” and a “bad guy”, when two people are in conflict, is so strong, but Jones refuses us that easy perspective. They're both the bad guy. They're both the good guy. They're both people who've spent the last five years suffering, and trying to deal with that suffering, in their own ways.

While there is a lot to really like here and this is definitely a good book, I'll be honest: it never quite crossed that line from good into great for me. I got more out of pondering it after I finished it than I got out of reading it, if that makes sense. And also, I had a small qualm with a writing choice Jones made: while the book is primarily told from the perspectives of Roy and Celestial, there's a third person who also gets point-of-view chapters. This person is important to the narrative and it wasn't that those portions were inferior or anything, but I would have preferred that the focus remained on the central couple exclusively. That being said, this is still a book that is well-worth your time and energy, and I'd recommend it to all readers.

This is a good old fashioned love triangle novel with a contemporary setting. The three main characters are young African Americans who are up and coming in their own ways. Roy and Celestial are newlyweds, while Andre and Celestial have known each other since infancy. Roy and Andre are college friends. When Roy goes to prison for a rape he did not commit, their relationships begin to shift.

The story is told from the perspectives of Roy, Celestial,and Andre in turn. Each character is both sympathetic and flawed. I spent about an equal amount of time being mad at each of them and rooting for them, although by the end of the story I had a clear favorite of the three.

This is a really enjoyable book with a deep story to tell about love and marriage.

A book where you root for and are mad at everyone. The characters are realistically flawed and understandable. I wanted impossible things for them. I'm aware that in real life, black men are targeted and abused by the system, and know all to well about impossible things, like regaining time lost and relationships devastated by separation and distance.

I also knew that darned tree would be imperiled at some point.

*4.25/5☆

“But home isn't where you land; home is where you launch. You can't pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.”

Writing: 5/5
Plot: 5/5
Characters: 4.5/5
Enjoyment: 4.5/5

My heart wasn't ready for this. This book was phenomenal, I can understand why Oprah picked this as her book club pick. This book is so raw and full of emotion. Tayari Jones did such a great job in making you feel every emotion the characters where going through. I loved that this wasn't just a love story between partners but between family too. I may or may not have cried more than once while reading this. This book was so unique to me because it wasn't the type of love story that you'd think. Its complicated and difficult to explain without completely spoiling the book for y'all. I was rooting for all of the characters especially Celestial she was my favorite but, both her and Roy deserve eternal happiness. Roy annoyed me at times if I'm being honest. I lowkey fell in love with Andre, he was so cute I just wanted to hug him at times. Y'all just need to read this beauty of a book!!!

Y'ALL TELL ME THAT I'M NOT THE ONLY ONE THAT THINKS THIS BUT MICHAEL B JORDAN WOULD BE AN AMAZING ROY IF THIS EVER BECOMES A MOVIE!!!

It was an okayish book. I sympathized a lot with Roy and Celestial, but at the same time i couldnt understand the course and reason behind their actions. I found more chemistry between Roy and Celestial than Andre and Celestial which felt like a forced relationship. I cant really tell what to think about this book

This story was intriguing, thought-provoking, and honest of how quickly someone's life can be derailed because of wrongful accusations. This is specifically true for men of color as prison statistics can attest. This book was a real human emotional journey and I loved the entire process of getting to the ending.
I only have one negative overall...
I have a giant pet peeve with multiple point of view stories when each character can not be distinguished by the tone or voice of the writing. If I stopped off in the middle of the chapter, I had to check back to see who I was reading because every character had the same phrasing and vocabulary. I know this is picky, but if you can't make the voices distinct, write in third person omniscient. Just sayin'~

A man and woman marry. He's from working class origins. She comes from money. Each has his own problems in his family of origin. They struggle with issues. They love each other. They struggle more.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, he is accused and convicted of rape. He is sent to prison. What will happen to their marriage?

I wavered and wavered on my rating of An American Marriage: A Novel by Tayari Jones. Chapter one left me breathless. Has anyone else really captured the dynamics of a marriage so well as Tayari Jones in chapter one? Five stars. I wasn't as pleased with the ensuing chapters, the time Roy spent in prison. Roy's time in prison and the reactions of his family and friends to his being in prison seemed muted. Three stars. And so my rating went, up and down, down and up, until I got to the very last page.

I don't want to share the ending, because a huge part of reading the book is to find out what happens to the marriage. There is also the bait of off-and-on wondering whether Roy did what he was accused of.

Still, despite my ambivalence about some of the parts of the story, overall, I'm very glad I read it.