SIMAR BHASIN

is an independent journalist

Tayari Jones’ An American

Marriage is the best book I’ve read this year. Centred on a wrongful rape conviction of an educated, middle class newlywed African American, Roy, the novel charts how this incident shapes the lives of those connected to him. Told through the perspectives of Roy, his wife Celestial, and her close friend Andre, the narrative pierces through the hollowness of the American dream. The unfairness of the situation is poignantly brought out in the letters Roy and Celestial write to one another after Roy is put behind bars, where he writes on the difficulty of writing, of expressing. As he puts it, the challenge lies in his wishing “to write something on this paper that will make you remember me – the real me, not the man you saw standing in a broke-down country courtroom, broke down myself.” The act of writing becomes the need to create a safe intimate space perhaps with an awareness that these letters

are read by agents of the state apparatus. The exchange is suggestive of the state surveillance of coloured communities in the US. The communities are striving to move out of an earlier generation’s distrust of the state. Yet, as in Roy and Celestial’s case, they are made aware of the futility of such an exercise. Jones touches upon not only the presence of racism in American society but also takes on complicated questions about the institution of marriage, of motherhood, and of exceptional choices needing to be made against the backdrop of exceptional circumstances. Roy and Celestial are navigating love and life in difficult times. As Celestial writes in her first letter to Roy, “Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied.” By situating the unfairness of the US legal system in the private lives of those involved, Jones’ narrative becomes a heartbreaking and moving story about relationships and the struggle for survival in unjust times.