Celestial and Roy are a young African-American couple — he’s a savvy salesman and she is on her way to establishing herself as a successful artist, making life-like, hand-sewn baby dolls or “poupées.”

Celestial and Roy have many common marriage challenges — in-laws, plans to start a family, their careers. After about a year and a half of marriage, Roy is falsely accused of attacking a woman. Celestial knows he’s innocent because she was there with him the whole time. But he’s still wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Roy’s incarceration is the central axis around which the story revolves — a story of all the people who are affected by it. The story is told from three separate points of view: from that of Celestial, the wife; Roy, the husband; and Andre, Celestial’s childhood friend.

Jones uses the three voices to pace her story, to pull back from the relationship and demonstrate the ravages of distance and time. They’re each fighting their individual battles — Roy with the injustice of what has been done to him and all that he’s lost when he has tried so hard to do everything right; Celestial, who is dealing with a battle between responsibility and desire, finding it hard to hold on to a marriage that hadn’t yet had time to “take”; and Andre, who was also Roy’s friend in college as well as the witness at their wedding. It is a story about a black couple in America ripped apart by a flawed justice system.

This is a powerful story with many layers of emotion, and every detail and character are woven together to form a phenomenal story of love, loss and reconciliation.

An American Marriage
Author: Tayari Jones
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Publication Date: February 2016

Contributor: Shamita Tripathy is a book enthusiast and works as a finance professional in the Bay area.