An American Marriage

Locations
Call Number: BOCD Fiction, Adult BOCD / Fiction / General / Jones, Tayari
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Westgate Branch

Location & Checkout Length	Call Number	Checkout Length	Item Status
Downtown 2nd Floor 4-week checkout	BOCD Fiction	4-week checkout	On Shelf
Westgate Adult A/V 4-week checkout	Adult BOCD / Fiction / General / Jones, Tayari	4-week checkout	On Shelf

Compact discs.
Read by Sean Crisden and Elsa Davis.
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.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

Library Journal Review
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Summary / Annotation
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COMMUNITY REVIEWS

An American Marriage submitted by kferguson on July 1, 2018, 5:56pm Believable story of consequences of the incarceration of an innocent black man. Lots of loss and change.

Compelling story and outstanding readers submitted by mgbrody on July 13, 2019, 11:15am An outstanding telling of a tragic story about the effects of the incarceration of an innocent man on his relationships and future. Highly recommend.

Disappointing submitted by TeacherN on July 27, 2019, 7:43pm I really wanted to like this book, but it fell flat for me.

Interesting character development submitted by kbcmmom on August 4, 2020, 9:52am I truly struggled with liking and disliking the two main characters. I found them realistic, human and flawed. Despite this, I kept rooting for them throughout the the story. This book is definitely worth reading for these reasons along with the insight into the way that racism impacts individuals, families and generations in different ways.

We had a great book club discussion on this book submitted by Susan4Pax -prev. sueij- on June 16, 2021, 8:42pm Mostly I really liked this story. It was compelling enough that I relayed the core of the whole of it to my boyfriend after I finished it: the setup, the issue, the main characters, the secondary characters, the conflicts, and the resolution. I loved the ways that generational factors played into characters’ lives, and how each main character was not only the sum of their own experiences, but also the extension of their parents’ experiences. The strength of outside forces and internal choices was, of course, one of the main themes of the book, and was extremely well done. The author telling the story through the alternating voices of the three core characters was brilliant. The book worked as well as it did *because* we saw the story from each one’s internal perspective (it very much matters how they saw themselves and each other, as each was clearly the hero of their own story). One of the main occurrences just shy of the end of the book was waaaaaay too predictable, though, and that bored me (Chekhov’s Gun… really?).

I listened to this as an audiobook, and liked that the alternating chapters were read by a male and a female reader. Sometimes the Roy chapter had dialog that included lines by Celestial, though. I found this extremely limiting, as the male reader’s voice for Celestial was breathy and weak, and did not at all sound like the strong woman that the character appeared to be written to be, or that the female reader presented. Celestial from the female reader was an entirely different character than Celestial from the male reader, even when they were in adjacent chapters (and this was more than just Roy’s perspective on her). It detracted from the novel as I listened to it. The male reader’s different voicings for Roy and Andre were excellent, though.

Overall a wonderful book that really made me think. I would probably rather have read it than listened to this one.