Book Review: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Back with another from the Women's Prize list. An American Marriage won the prize in 2019.

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are looking forward to starting their life together. Roy is a young executive and Celestial is talented artist, both on the brink of successful and exciting careers. During a trip back to Louisiana to visit Roy's parents, Roy is convicted of a crime that both he and Celestial know with 100% certainty he did not commit. With less than a year of marriage under their belts, Roy is served a 12 year prison sentence and Celestial is left bereft and alone, turning to her childhood friend, Andre, for comfort. When Roy's sentence is overturned after five years, he returns home to resume the life he left behind, only to find that everything has changed.

This is a stunning book and one that will stay with me for a long time. It is a rich, character-driven novel that looks at racial injustice in America in a way that I haven't come across before. Rather than focusing only on the facts of Roy's wrongful conviction and incarceration, it also looks at the wider picture and the repercussions that this has on Roy's life after release, as well as the impact on his family and loved ones.

Each chapter of the book is written from the perspective of either Celestial, Roy, or Andre, and so we get to understand the situation from all angles and it becomes impossible to 'take a side'. Roy has served a brutal five year sentence for something he did not do, and naturally wants to return home after his release to continue his life as he knew it. Celestial has seen the growth of her business while Roy has been away and so she's no longer the woman she was when he was imprisoned.

I absolutely loved this book; it was one of those that I knew I was going to absolutely devour even when I'd only read the first ten pages. It is masterfully written and absolutely heartbreaking in parts. Roy has always known his limitations as a black man; he has worked hard, won a scholarship to a good school, and has spent his entire life trying to prove his worth. But simply being in the wrong place and the wrong time meant that five years of his life were taken away from him. The agony he feels at realising that his entire life has been stripped from him is written so vividly. From Celestial's point of view, she loves her husband and yet, having only been married for a few months before being separated for five years, finds her sense of loyalty to him conflicting with her own need for happiness.

An American Marriage is more than a novel about institutionalised racism in America; it is a story of cruel injustice, of the complexities of human relationships, and of what loyalty really means.

"Your best quality is also your worst. I've likely rolled with punches when I should've hit back."