Jones’ novel joins Oprah’s club

NEW YORK Tayari Jones, whose novel An American Marriage has been chosen for Oprah Winfrey’s book club, will always remember that phone call from October.

She was driving in Las Vegas, expecting to hear from books editor Leigh Haber of Winfrey’s magazine, O, for which Jones has written reviews. “But instead of Leigh’s voice coming through the sound system of my car, it was Oprah’s,” Jones, 47, said. “I would have known that voice anywhere. And I just pulled over, in a not-so-great part of town. And people were tapping on my windows, and I was like, ‘Go away, I’m trying to have the biggest moment of my life.’ ”

Winfrey’s magazine and OWN network said on Tuesday that Winfrey had selected Jones’s story about a young, newly married African-American couple. Their lives are upended after the husband’s shocking arrest and prison term for a crime no one he knows believes he committed. Winfrey’s production company, Harpo Films, is planning an adaptation.

Published Tuesday, the book was already one of the year’s most anticipated novels and had reached the top 1,000 on Amazon.com before Winfrey’s announcement. An American Marriage includes blurbs from Michael Chabon and Edwidge Danticat and was praised

by The Washington Post as a compelling story that raises “punishing questions” and spins them “with tender patience.”

Winfrey said Jones’s novel made her respond in a similar way to other works she has picked for her club: She just had to tell others about it.

“I just get such a deep pleasure from the written word and finding out that other people feel the same way,” said Winfrey. “It’s kind of like sharing values. It’s like saying here’s an experience that I value and you’re trying to get somebody to also appreciate it.”

Winfrey’s interview with Jones will appear in the March issue of O, which comes out next week.

Since starting her club in 1996, Winfrey has helped put dozens of books on the bestseller lists.