Literary Fiction Annotation - An American Marriage

Basic Info:

An American Marriage – Tayari Jones

Genre: Literary Fiction

Publication Date: 2018

Number of Pages: 306, hardcover

Geographic Setting: Eloe, LA and Atlanta, GA

Time Period: Current

Series: None

Plot Summary:

  

Celestial is a headstrong, ambitious artist from Atlanta, GA. Roy is a successful, self-made business man from Eloe, LA.  After being married just over a year, Roy and Celestial’s marriage isn’t perfect, but as Roy says, “One year in and the fire was still burning hot blue.”

While on a trip to visit Roy’s parents, Celestial and Roy stay at a hotel where they are woken abruptly, pulled into the parking lot, and Roy is accused, and convicted of a crime that his friends and family know he did not commit. Regardless, he is sentenced to prison for 12 years.

While Roy serves time, he and Celestial grow apart and eventually, Roy ceases all contact with her. Yet, Celestial does not file for divorce, continues to add money to his commissary account, and prods her Uncle Banks (Roy’s attorney), to continue fighting for an appeal.

When Uncle Banks finally gets Roy out 7 years early, Roy goes back to his home that he shared with Celestial and finds that she is seriously involved with Andre, her best friend from childhood, and the one who introduced she and Roy.

While Roy knows things have changed between he and Celestial, he knows that she stayed married to him all those years and his key still fits their home's door,  so he holds out hope. But after a confrontation in which Roy tries to chop down a meaningful tree in their yard, the couple wonders if it is too late to pick up the pieces and begin where they left off, or if they both have changed in ways that will make happiness again as a couple impossible.

Characteristics of Literary Fiction

Style/Language: The structure is more complex with chapters that alternate between various character perspectives.

Story Line: Per Saricks (2009), “Literary Fiction tends to deal with serious, provocative topics” and “presents a world in which there are no easy choices and no clear-cut good and evil” (181). While not the focus of the story, the conviction of an innocent black man is the catalyst for the story line.

Characterization: The reader experiences introspective, in-depth looks at the characters. The characters are “unique but always believable” (Saricks, 2009, p 180). The secondary characters, especially Andre, play a crucial role in the story.

Readers May Also Enjoy:

Upstate by Kalisha Buckhanon

Both novels focus on African American families torn apart by incarceration. While “An American Marriage" is told through regular prose and some letters, “Upstate” is completely epistolary.

Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward

Both novels are character-driven and center on the lives of two different African American families dealing with the effects of incarceration and how lives are changed upon a loved one’s release.

Saricks, J. G. (2009). The readers advisory guide to genre fiction. Chicago: American Library Association.