My regret is how hard we fought that night, over his parents, of all things. We had fought harder even before we married, when we were playing at love, but those were tussles about our relationship. At the Piney woods, we tangled about history, and there is no fair fight to be waged about the past.
Celestial, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones
Celestial and Roy spend the first year of their marriage in petty brawls and unresolved skirmishes until everything changes. On a night when they have one of their weightiest arguments at the Piney Woods, Roy is wrongfully accused of rape and convicted to 12 years in prison.
The book unravels with the events that happen after Roy’s conviction.
The book is narrated from each character’s point of view and revolves around Roy, Celestial, and Andre’s versions of events.
The initial months following Roy’s conviction portray the regret that both Roy and Celestial felt for spending too much time arguing in their marriage instead of building a strong foundation to weather life’s challenges. They express these regrets through letters to each other during the first months until Celestial eventually stops writing.
In an unnerving turn of events, Celestial requests a divorce from Roy only to be proposed to by her best friend, Andre, after years of Roy’s incarceration. When Roy is finally released, a moment of reckoning between Andre, Roy, and his father, and Celestial and her parents await him on the side of freedom.
Tayari Jones uses this book to set the scene of reflection on what a true and strong marriage looks like. Whether the vows of ‘For better and for worse’ will hold fast in the darkest days and what a foundation of friendship can do for a marriage. Tayari also explores the enduring issue of wrongful convictions for men of color in the American justice system, highlighting the impact of the time lost from the perspectives of the victims, the accused, and their families.
I recommend this book to anyone seeking to explore the true meaning of marriage and commitment amidst challenges and to empathize with families of wrongfully convicted persons.
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Happy reading, everybody!