An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
I SUPER DUPER highly recommend this book I just finished.
Here is a summary:
“Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, 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. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. An American Marriage is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.”
This story was about falling in and out of love, being black in America, the complexities of the US prison system, and the different ways we define and view family.
Your heart will be torn in pieces for these characters and the struggles and pain they experience…because even though it’s a work of fiction there is SO MUCH reality in those pages.
Seeing things from not from just one character’s lens, you hear one story told by various voices.
The audiobook of this novel was SUPREMELY well done and really allows you to “feel” the character’s words and thoughts.
I couldn’t stop listening once I started…this author is very talented in fictional story and character development yet also making powerful statements on many real life important issues.
I will definitely be reading more works by this phenomenal writer.