An American
Marriage: A Novel
by Tayari Jones
c.2018, Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill
$26.95 / higher in Canada
308 pages
By Terri Schlichenmeyer
The Truth Contributor
He did it on one knee.
One knee, with a nervous grin on his face and a velvet box
in his shaking hands, asking you the Question of a Lifetime.
You’d talked about this day but it was still a surprise and
now you have planning to do, just the two of you. Or, as in
An American Marriage by Tayari Jones, three…
The last time Roy Othaniel Hamilton enjoyed a truly happy
evening was about a year-and-a-half after he married his
wife, Celestial, the only woman (after his Mama) that he
ever really loved. It’s true that they’d been arguing that
night – they argued and made up, argued and made up a lot
then – but things were going well. They’d even talked about
having a baby on that last happy evening before the police
broke down the door of their room at Piney Woods Motel and
arrested Roy for a rape he didn’t commit.
His life was supposed to be with Celestial. He believed that
all along.
They’d met in college: his buddy, Andre, was her best friend
and Dre introduced them but Roy and Celestial didn’t click
until years later. They met again, dated, and the rest was,
well, not exactly smooth. He cheated on her a time or two.
She’d freeze him out when she caught him, but she knew she
was his woman.
Celestial also knew the man she married, and Roy wasn’t
capable of raping some woman six years older than his own
mother. But a jury wouldn’t believe her, wouldn’t believe
him, would only believe an old woman who pointed a
finger … and there you go: Roy’s sentence was 16 years in a
Louisiana penitentiary.
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