Published by Algonquin Books Genres: Adult Fiction, Contempory, Fiction, Literary Fiction
Format: eBook
Celestial and Roy are a young married couple who have a bright future. He has an executive with a good job, and she is an artist who makes dolls. One night. Just one night is all it takes to change the course of their lives forever. When Roy is falsely accused and convicted of a crime he did not commit, lives change. An American Marriage shows how lives change, relationships change, how love changes, how we fall in love, and how we lose our loved ones.
You never know what life will bring you. There are so many things that can have a negative effect on a marriage, in this book being falsely accused and incarcerated is the catalyst. Through the storytelling we get the POV of Celestial, Roy and Celestial’s lifelong friend, Andre. Each has a story to tell. Celestial must live a life without her husband, forging ahead with her dreams and building a business, Roy must adapt to life behind bars and Andre who introduced them, was a friend to them both. They are not the only characters; Big Roy stole the show for me.
When Roy’s conviction is overturned, what will the future hold for each of the characters? Do you sympathize with any of them? I liked how all the characters were flawed. None, except Big Roy, had me rooting for them, and yet I was riveted to the pages of this book. I enjoyed reading about their individual and combined journeys. I loved how they communicated through their correspondence much better than they did face to face.
I found this to be a beautifully written book and really enjoyed the Author’s note as the end where she described an argument she observed, how she went home and wrote down everything she could remember about it and thus this book was born.
I found this book to be thought provoking and captivating. There is a lot of food for thought and I appreciated how the characters interacted and still had love for each other. These are not bad people; these are people who had something bad happen to them – especially Roy.
Thank you to Brenda for reading this with me. I enjoyed our discussion.
Highly Recommend.