There have been so
many reviews and opinions written about “An American Marriage” that I did
wonder if there was any point in me adding my two pence. There have been so
many reviews and opinions written about “An American Marriage” that I did
wonder if there was any point in me adding my two pence.
“An American Marriage” examines
what it means to be black in America today, by studying the effects of
incarceration on the psyche of black Americans, and the impact this has on some
rather complicated relationships. It’s a love story, but not in the traditional
way, as it’s not the Happy Ever After that takes centre-stage, but the
disintegration of a marriage.
Roy and Celestial are seemingly
the perfect couple by general Hollywood standards: young, attractive, smart, and
ambitious. They are university-educated, and Celestial at least, comes from an
affluent family. They start off seeming to be very much in love, although not
without their moments of conflict. There is tenderness between them as well as
passion, and they support each other in their ambitions. Until one day, one
argument, and one chance encounter, causes everything to come apart.
The catalyst for the unravelling
of Roy’s life in the book, is that age-old thing: a black man falsely accused
of rape. Only this time it’s a little further away from “To Kill A Mockingbird”
territory, as the victim was indeed raped, but Jones doesn’t specify whether
she was white. It is, however, implied, as we’re told that Roy was “a black man
in the wrong place at the wrong time". The crime itself takes place
off-stage; there are no details about it, because it’s not the crime but the
consequences that are central to the book.
We know that Roy is innocent, but
he is – figuratively - lynched by the system; his wrongful conviction means he
loses almost all sense of self and security that he has worked so hard to build.
It’s a common enough story, but Jones tells it in a unique way, examining the
effects on all parties involved, from the different points of view of Roy,
Celestial, and their friend Andre. There is nobody to blame apart from the absent
perpetrator, and allowances are even made for the victim’s mistaken testimony.
And so we don’t ever get the satisfaction of justice being done. Instead, we’re
watching the characters learn how to reconcile themselves to the bitterness and
pain, and learning how to move on.
For Roy, who was raised with the
old-fashioned values that a husband “sits his woman down”, or provides for his
wife, prison is an emasculating experience. Suddenly the tables are turned and
he has to rely on Celestial’s financial and emotional support. It’s a bitter
pill to swallow, and he talks of needing to feel “like a man” once more. However,
the experience also makes a martyr of him in the eyes of his community, and
with it comes the expectation that Celestial martyr her own feelings in turn,
for Roy’s happiness. When she rebels against this, she’s ostracised by their
families. As Celestial’s friend Andre points out: “In a way, the whole black
race was loyal to Roy, a man just down from the cross.” In other words,
Celestial’s needs and feelings must come second to this greater, more primal
injustice, and Jones allows us to watch, judge and re-evaluate our judgement of
her as she wrestles with her conflicting feelings of love and duty.
Racism is a negative force in the
book, but I wouldn’t call it a book “about” racism: there is no outright
hostility or tensions with white authorities; there are no named, white
characters, and any encounters with state institutions are impersonal. It’s
about the pressures exerted by race and class on personal relationships. It’s
about being a black American at the mercy of a prejudiced justice system. It’s
about social mobility, which is more elusive than it’s often made out to be (to
what extent does The American Dream really exist for everybody?). It’s also
about gender, and the often unfair expectations that men have of themselves,
and of the women in their lives.
And that’s before we even get to
the rawness of the emotions: you can feel Big Roy’s love for Olive, Roy Jr’s
helpless rage, Celestial’s sadness, and Andre’s determination, pulsing off the
page. This is wholly due to Jones’ language, which is visceral and lyrical by
turns, giving us little gems like Andre describing his feelings for Celestial:
My affection for her is etched onto my body like the Milky Way birthmark scoring my shoulder blades.
Or Celestial’s description of her
marriage to Roy:
…our marriage was a fine-spun tapestry, fragile but fixable. We tore it often and mended it, always with a silken thread, lovely but sure to give way.
I’m a sucker for characters I can
care about, and these ones are warm, serious and authentic. Roy is a loveable
rogue, and Andre has emotional integrity, whatever else we might think of his
actions. Although I thought that Celestial wasn’t as open or as “real” as Roy
or Andre seem, Jones paints her very sensitively: I appreciated the fact that
she tried to do the right thing by Roy as far as she could, and that she resisted
the roles that other people tried to force her into, in order to live on her
own terms. Yet I found some of her thought processes a little more opaque: why
could she not have made a clean break with Roy? Was it cowardice, pity, or some
lingering affection for him?
That little quibble aside, what
made this book for me were the fundamentally good but flawed characters, who
are convincingly, recognisably human, dealing with the worst that life can
throw at them in the way that flawed human beings do: by making a bucketload of
mistakes, but learning and growing from that, and eventually, finding their own
happiness.
Please join the discussion at The Brown Brontë's Book Club where we'll be digging into how relevant the themes discussed in this book are today.
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