An AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones Is about Universal Love and Biased Miscarriage of Justice

"An American Marriage" is a tribute to love and relationships as told cleverly from the individual viewpoints of its star crossed young lovers Roy & Celestial.  The third party in a fraught love triangle is Andre, Celestial's childhood.  Andre, the boy next door to Celestial and college cohort of Roy becomes  Celestial's lover while Roy is serving out a 12 year sentence for rape; a crime he didn't commit.  I'm too far forward in the story and need to lay the groundwork on which to build this brilliantly structured tale of the pitfalls of love and the injustices befalling men of color in our country today.  Author Tayari Jones' (b Amer 1970) "An American Marriage" sifts through love, relationships and marriages with a sage and a tender look.  Simultaneously, Jones scrutinizes the stereotypes of African American life.  "She is a black woman and every body already thinks she got 50-11 babies with 50-11 daddies; that she got welfare checks coming in 50-11 people's names."  Jones also scrutinizes the tilted scales of justices weighted unjustly against men of color in society and court of law.  These serious issues are merged with the commitment and confines of marriage.  It is a "peculiar institution" and one that will flounder when it is not approached as a two way street or when there is a failure to perceive the other person's perception.  Even though one can never know the other's mind, it's imperative to acknowledge & be sensitive to one other's position.  Jones cleverly provides the reader exactly what each individual is thinking and experiencing.  A poignant epistolary portion are the letters to and from Roy while incarcerated.  This aligns us with empathy & appreciation for all the characters and their circumstances.  Roy and Celestial's endearing love story is drastically torn apart just a year into their marriage.  Roy is falsely accused of raping a white woman and sentenced to 12 years in prison.  "Just the wrong race and wrong time.  Police are shady as hell.  That's why everybody is locked up."  Roy sanguinely observes "That's your fate as a black man.  Carried by 6 or judged by 12."  The mass incarceration is a scorching social critique.  Regardless, once imprisoned, innocent or not, prison changes you and makes you into a convict.  Three years into Roy's incarceration, Celestial and Andre become a couple which is of no surprise to anyone.  Communication between Roy & Celestial had discontinued but divorce proceedings never commenced.  Roy is released 5 years into his 12 sentence an ventures to ascertain where he fits into Celestial's life, his legal wife even though he fears love can't be started over.  Oprah Winfrey selected "An American Marriage" as one of her book club selections.  This is a fictitious love story that doesn't run smoothly.  And this is an all too true depiction of social injustice and mass incarceration.  The harshness of prison and tenderness of love are both impregnable in this book I highly recommend.  A marriage is more than your heart.  It's your life.  And it needs to be continuous.  "Marriage is like grafting a limb onto a trunk."  Marriage is a fragile growth too easily torn apart.  Mass incarceration is an intolerable enemy of justice and destructor of families.  Still, "Love is the enemy of sound judgement, occasionally this is in the service of the good."