An American Marriage, Tayari Jones, Algonquin Books, 2018, 306 pp
As I sat down to write this review the other day, I was suffering from a sense of despair about life and the world. In An American Marriage I found two young African Americans who fall in love, marry, and then have their lives destroyed by a wrongful sentencing of the husband to twelve years in prison for a rape he did not commit. This did not happen back in the 1950s but in the present day. To despair or not despair, that is the question.
The marriage falls apart, the center cannot hold. The wife, allowed to be at large in the world, can be productive enough not to be destroyed. She can create her art, run her business, have friends and even a lover. That does not mean she is happy or even secure. It just means she is not imprisoned.
The husband has lost pretty much all agency in his life. If he has to serve his entire sentence his life will be half over by the time he is free. He tries, through letters and visits, to hold on to his wife but his future depends on a lawyer, an appeal, and the courts. He is not in control of any of it.
The wife appears to be the stronger of the two though she is not inherently either a better or worse person than her husband. They muddle along. The marriage may not have lasted in any case due to the personality differences between them. She is strong in support of her freedom of choice as a woman, an artist and a person. But so is the husband though his approach to life differs from hers. As it is, his incarceration becomes the main destructive element.
So, white vs black, woman vs man, freedom vs various forces that deny it. This novel is less cheerful than her earlier Silver Sparrow but no less well written. It must have been hard to get the story right. Universal human issues set in a particular American location and time. It is full of emotion, almost too full, but she reined it in and made it feel real and true.
(An American Marriage is available in hardcover by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
I had to reread my review to recall what I liked about it: but I guess I liked how: "All of them get damaged and share some blame. And none of them are without faults and you might not even like them, but you see the personal toll the situation takes on them." You get a bit of every side in this incredibly unjust, difficult situation ... I can understand: a sense of despair. The author does well with the reins on how it goes down.
ReplyDeleteOMG, I should have let you write my review! Yes, it was that bit of every side that made it so powerful. She does the same thing in Silver Sparrow.
DeleteMy reaction to the book was a bit different than yours, I think. Although the story of the marriage is a tragic one on various levels, the individual stories are about a human ability to adapt, survive, and even triumph over the obstacles which fate places in our path. Ultimately, I saw the two main characters as heroic survivors making the best of a bad - very bad - situation.
ReplyDeleteWell I can see it that way too, on a good day. I think a book strikes a reader in relation to what the reader has going on at the time of reading. That is why I like discussing books!
DeleteI haven't read Silver Sparrow, but I did think this was pretty good.
ReplyDeleteTayari Jones has a unique voice. Silver Sparrow was an exceptional book.
DeleteThis book caused quite a stir in the blogosphere earlier this year and I can see that with good reason. I haven't read it but I think, based on every review I've read, all the comments above are valid; the novel can have those various interpretations. However the characters were trying to adjust to their new circumstances is neither good or bad, even if they themselves weren't likable. Every person copes with tragedy (or bad luck) in a unique way.
ReplyDeleteI think you hit the nail on the head Carmen. It is a tragedy and tragedy is part of life. The greatness of the novel is how she took a known, almost commonplace even if horrific, societal tragedy and made it specific to these two people. We are all unique.
DeleteI love deep reads as they really make you think about important issues. This one sounds like one of those reads and it is very popular right now.
ReplyDeleteYes every marriage has issues but this one had a couple too many and it made me wonder what I would have done.
Delete