Readers,
Appalling rain all weekend. Cancelled tennis and went full on hermit in my apartment. This was not to plan. I've recently moved to a new country (America -> Australia) and so I'm supposed to be making new friends. So far, progress is strong. It's pretty remarkable what people will do for you when they sense you're desperate for company. Here's a few examples: 1) Invite you to a birthday party for someone you don't know where six very close friends sit around eating cheese and you are the only stranger in the group, 2) Invite you to a board games party in the suburbs where you try (and fail) to reign in your competitive spirit and appear charming (ditto on the close friends/only stranger thing) 3) Lead you around a church hall introducing you to everyone in sight under 30 while somehow avoiding anyone over 70, 4) Invite you to take up tennis, whereupon you discover you don't have any skill at tennis, whereupon you discover that you can befriend all the other klutz's in your tennis lessons.
All of this is to say that people are remarkably kind. Or at least, they have been to me (I admit it - I'm a lucky duck). Maybe they want to purge the smell the desperation, maybe they're just good people. I don't know. But it makes me wonder - if we can do these things for strangers. How much more do we owe the people who we have made commitments too? If you'll invite me to your best friend's cheese party, who won't you invite? And why?
This is the question Tayari Jones takes up in An American Marriage. The premise is this: one day Roy, newly married husband of Celestial, is accused of raping a woman and is sent to jail for a crime he did not commit. Roy and Celestial are young and black, living in Atlanta, and trying to "come up" in the world. They're doing pretty well for themselves and then, in a moment, it all gets taken away. Or at least, it gets taken away from one of them. While Roy is in jail Celestial keeps living. Through her letters to Roy, we see her starting to move on, to rely more on her best friend Andre, to find financial and critical success with her business. In essence, she becomes independent. And then, Roy is freed. He comes home. And he wants Celestial back.
Readers, here's a quick list of some (of the myriad) things I don't know anything about: 1) Being Married; 2) Being Black in America (or anywhere); 3) Being Unfairly Sent to Prison. Tayari Jones does these topics more justice, I suspect, than I can appreciate. This book is full of questions that I don't have any good answers for. But what caught me the most about this novel - and it is a truly beautiful book - is its even more fundamental, motivating questions: what do we owe one another? And when the time comes, will we fulfill our duty?
It's easy to read this book and judge the main characters. Roy has some things to say about women that made me want to close the book pretty quick. Celestial is prone to selfishness. The chapters narrated by Andre are laced with so much justification and explanation that I wonder who he thinks he's narrating too.
But if we were to judge these three, we'd be guilty, I think, of deep hypocrisy. It's not so easy to stick by someone. Our divorce rates are testament enough to that. But more simply - what about the friends we've left in the lurch? Or just fallen out of contact with? If I were Celestial, and my husband were sent to jail for the foreseen future - what would I do? What do I owe him? What do I owe myself? Can it be my duty to let my life, a second life, be ruined as well? Can commitment demand that I too am sentenced? After all, vows were made.
Tayari Jones answers the question with a single sentiment: Compassion. These are flawed characters in a flawed world. They don't always do what is right by one another, but they are always kind. When they betray, they do so with regret and an awareness of their own weakness. They are consistently hard on themselves: recognizing the failure of the standards they once set. There's something very honest, and maybe a little admirable, in that.
Compassion is good, but standards are too, and this novel doesn't forget that. Here's Tayari Jones, in her simple, elegant prose, making sure no one gets off the hook too easily: "What is all this stuff about love and her own mind? I don't mean to be harsh, but this this is bigger than any little romance...What did Roy do to deserve any of this? He didn't do anything but be a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is basic."