An American Marriage

Subtitle
A Novel

Author Tayari Jones

**Winner of the 2019 Women’s Prize for fiction**

**Oprah's Book Club 2018 Selection**

Newlyweds Celestial and Roy are the embodiment of both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into the routine of their life together, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Roy is arrested and sentenced to 12 years for a crime Celestial knows he didn’t commit. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself bereft and unmoored, taking comfort in Andre, her childhood friend, and best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison passes, she is unable to hold on to the love that has been her center. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned, and he returns to Atlanta ready to resume their life together.

This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. "An American Marriage" is a masterpiece of storytelling, an intimate look deep into the souls of people who must reckon with the past while moving forward — with hope and pain — into the future.

Bio

Tayari Jones earned her Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at Arizona State University in 2000. She is the author of four novels: "An American Marriage," "Silver Sparrow," "The Untelling," and "Leaving Atlanta."


Praise for this book

It's among Tayari's many gifts that she can touch us soul to soul with her words.

Oprah Winfrey

Tayari Jones is blessed with vision to see through to the surprising and devastating truths at the heart of ordinary lives.

Michael Chabon
Cover of An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Date published
Publisher
Algonquin Books
ISBN
978-1616208776

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