An American Marriage - Tayari Jones

Written by Tayari Jones
Read by Sean Crisden, Eisa Davis
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HighBridge
Audie Award Nominee: Notable Books for Adults
Release date: February 6, 2018
Duration: 09:00:00

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 twelve 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.

“Prepare for better–and for worse. Narrators Eisa Davis and Sean Crisden skillfully portray Celestial and Roy, whose new marriage is interrupted by Roy’s incarceration for a crime he didn’t commit. In Part One, the narrators read the couple’s letters so intimately that the listener may feel like an intruder. As months drag into years, each narrator coolly offers an invitation to feel the characters’ doubt about the future of their marriage. In Parts Two and Three, the supporting characters are portrayed smoothly. Crisden delivers the interactions between the male characters at a dizzying pace. Davis’s reading is solid yet soft, evoking sympathy and frustration with Celestial’s longing for a different life. As every wedding vow is tested, the narrators breathe intensity into Jones’s riveting prose.” � AudioFile