An American Marriage; Tayari Jones

“An American Marriage” is multiple stories wrapped together, and I don’t say that because there are three POV characters. You have the messy relationships of Celestial and Roy, Andre and Celestial, and then the relationships between them and their parents all under a magnifying lens highlighting every flaw. Then you have the story of the gross injustice in our justice system that incarcerates a disproportionate amount of Black and Brown men, and how that incarceration upends not just their lives, but the lives of their families and disrupts a whole community. Sometimes, these two stories came together, and other times they didn’t, which made this book hard for me to put my finger on if I liked it in its entirety, or just certain parts. So, let’s talk about the characters first and the “romance” aspect. Beware, this is a long one!

---

It’s genuinely hard to like any of these characters (except Big Roy), but it’s also hard to dislike them, too—except Little Roy. This book is painful in that we watch with razor focus as a new marriage, under two years, was already full of lies and omissions; with Roy just barely a step away from constantly cheating on Celestial, and Celestial being so worried about losing herself to a man that she always had a hard time giving any part of herself for the greater good of their union. These lies and omissions really came to a head when Roy is wrongfully imprisoned and their communication with each other was put to the ultimate test.

I will say that some of my favorite parts of this book were Celestial and Roy’s letters back and forth to each other. Showing the passage of time and the deterioration of their marriage in such a way was great and I devoured that section of the book. But it’s when we get to see the relationship through the characters eyes that, well, I could not stand Little Roy anymore. Incarceration changes a person, especially when they’re wrongfully convicted. But we don’t see much of Roy’s time in prison, what he endured, what he did to survive. Perhaps that was the author’s way of communicating that a lot of these men do not share what they have undergone when incarcerated with their loved ones, but, either way, it meant that at the end, when Roy explodes, the sympathy I should have for this man wasn’t there.

Roy was always kind of an overgrown manchild with an uncomfortable obsession with getting his wife pregnant. When he slept with women on the side, he’d beg them to allow him not to use protection, and then he turns around to violently vilify Celestial for being with Andre and having the “audacity” to ask him to use a condom. His response is to threaten with “I could take it if I wanted to. But I won’t.” You could pass that off as this is what the “justice” system turned Roy into, but even before his wrongful imprisonment he was doing this kind of thing, so there goes that. And while I liked Andre for Celestial much more (c’mon, childhood friend who pined for this girl his whole life? Yes please!), you don’t get much of him to really understand him or know him, and that was a bit of a letdown, too. He does genuinely seem to understand Celestial better, is able to meet her where she is, but because we don’t see as much of him it can read a lot as his only function is to live his life FOR Celestial, and that’s a bit too codependent for me. While I saw myself in Celestial quite a bit, there is also no getting around the fact that she moved on with her life pretty fast once Roy was taken away. Should she have put her life on hold? Paused her dreams and made taking care of him while he was incarcerated her main focus? That depends on your view of romantic partnerships. I think a balance could have been struck, but Celestial didn’t bother with that.

These characters all occupied different spaces from one another, and because of that they had an ideal of the other person that was never based in reality. And it cost them all dearly. Roy had a vision for his career and his pretty bride, one where she would be a kept artist and would become “whole” when she began popping out babies. But he was ashamed of where he came from and took too long to invite Celestial into that part of his life, keeping her at the same arm’s length that she held herself at because of the predatory relationship that traumatized her in college. A relationship and trauma she never shared with Roy until he was imprisoned. At the end, they do realize the space they are happiest in and stay with the person who appreciates them for who they ARE rather than who they wish the other was. Which is good! But the mess that these characters waded through to get there was a lot.

If it seems like I’m spending way more time on the characters than the injustice of the system, well that’s because outside of the middle section with their letters, there’s just not much to talk about, which is a shame. But, that one section was one of my favorites, even if at the end I did not like Celestial or Roy. So how do you rate this book, these stories? The writing was fabulous with some really strong lines and an overall heart-wrenching story that was, ironically, very easy to read. This book is a perfect book club read for the kind of discussions you can have around it, and I really appreciate that, too! But my frustration with these characters is heavy and therefore makes this a 3.5 star read for me. But this author’s writing and storytelling ability is amazing and I’ve already picked up another of her books!