An American Marriage

Author/Guide: Tayari Jones

Why a Booktrail?

2000s: The winner of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2019

ISBN: 978-1786075192
Genre: Fiction

Comment

What you need to know before your trail

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of the American Dream. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. Until one day they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit.

Devastated and unmoored, Celestial finds herself struggling to hold on to the love that has been her centre, taking comfort in Andre, their closest friend. When Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, he returns home ready to resume their life together.

A masterpiece of storytelling, An American Marriage offers a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three unforgettable characters who are at once bound together and separated by forces beyond their control.

Locations

Reset

Travel Guide

Travel the American South

This is a book about a marriage in crisis, about racial injustice and about a man in jail for a crime he did not commit.

The novel deals with racism in America, especially reactions and treatment of African Americans in the South.

Roy and Celestial travel from their home in Atlanta to visit Roy’s parents in Louisiana. On the way, they stop at an inn….he is soon arrested for a crime he did not commit.

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

Roy’s time behind prison is captured through letters between him and Celestial. The state of their marriage, their experience of racism is explored, but most of all, the imbalance of the justice systems is brought to the fore.