Injustice

~ An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones ~

A penetrating indictment of the consequences of the American justice and prison system, Tayari Jones’ excellent fourth novel examines the endless rippling effects of incarceration not just on the prisoners, but on their families, friends and the African American community.

It starts simply enough: Roy Hamilton is musing about his upbringing in a the small Louisana town of Elo, in contrast to his wife Celestial who grew up in big-city Atlanta. Roy was always hardworking and ambitious. He used every program available to him — Head Start, Upward Bound, a scholarship to Morehouse College — with the goal of eventual wealth, stability, and respectability.

Celestial was visiting her friend Andre in college when Roy, next door in the dorm, showed up. Years later Roy and Celestial met again in New York City, and this time sparks flew. Roy brings her home to meet his parents, but it doesn’t go well.

Nobody can really satisfy their mama when it comes to the ladies. All my buddies tell me that their mothers are steady warning them, “If she can’t use your comb, don’t bring her home.” Ebony and Jet both swear up and down that all the black men with two nickels to rub together are opting for the swirl. As for me, I’m strictly down with the brown, and my mama has the nerve to fret about which particular shade of sister I was choosing.

The novel almost seems like a novel about black families and relationships at this point, which it is, but we’re really just getting to know Roy, Celestial, Andre, and Roy’s parents Olive and Big Roy. Roy always imagined marriage and children in his future, and once he met Celestial, all his dreams of the future centered on her.

Melded seamlessly into the fabric of the novel is the difference between being white and black in America. It seems innocuous enough at first: differences in the cultural sayings:

The world is changing, so the way you bring up kids has to change, too. Part of my plan was to never one time mention picking cotton. My parents always talked about either real cotton or the idea of it. White people say ‘It beats digging a ditch’, black people say ‘It beats picking cotton’. I’m not going to remind my kids that somebody died in order for me to do everyday things. […] Now Celestial promises that she will never say that they have to be twice as good to get half as much.

And then, devastatingly unexpected, comes a rape accusation from a woman in a motel, who is convinced that Roy was the black man who broke into her room. Roy and Celestial both know they spent the night together, and all their relatives are sure of his innocence, but guilt or innocence is almost beside the point.

It is impossible for the reader not to think of people like Brock Turner, the white Stanford rapist, who got a light sentence because of the judge’s deep concern for Turner’s future and potential. No such privilege for the vast majority of black and brown men. Roy is sentenced to 12 years in jail, and their 18 months of mostly idyllic marriage is over.

Celestial loves and is committed to Roy, and stunned by the verdict.

It turns out that I watch too much television. I was expecting a scientist to comme and testify about DNA. I was looking for a pair of good-looking detectives to burst into the courtoom at the last minute, whispering something urgent to the prosecutor. Everyone would see that this was a big mistake, a major misunderstanding. We would all be shaken but appeased. I fully believed that I would leave the courtroom with my husband beside me. Secure in our home, we would tell people how no black man is really safe in America.

Much of the following chapters is told in alternating letters from Roy and Celestial — sometimes touching, sometimes bitter, jealous (on Roy’s part), loving, loyal, panicked, anxious, resigned. It becomes slowly obvious that Roy’s life is unavoidably static, while Celestial’s is moving forward. Roy’s mother dies, but he cannot be with her in her last weeks or attend the funeral. Celestial’s art gets attention, but she doesn’t mention her incarcerated husband in interviews, much to his dismay.

And then the appeal finally works, and Roy is released after five years in prison. Roy’s prison mentor, Walter, warns him:

In the short/long weeks between when I got news that I was leaving until I actually left, Walter hardly slept at all, talking through the night, 1001 life lessons for the recently unincarcerated. “Remember”, he said, “your woman has been in the world this whole time.”

Indeed, Celestial’s life has changed, but is it possible that their love will rekindle? A significant part of the novel is set after Roy’s release. No spoilers, but Jones captures the emotional tumult of Roy, Celestial, Andre and Big Roy, as well as the big questions: what will Roy do? where will he live? in what direction will his life go?

All the characters are solid, detailed, empathetic portrayals. Jones avoids the simplistic temptation to side with one or the other. No character here is perfect. Roy’s mother had him at 17, and Big Roy is not his biological father. Celestial is not a saint: she makes fewer visits to the prison as time goes on, and her life changes. Roy has an eye for the ladies, as does Celestial’s father. Roy is very conscious of his own masculinity and the meaning of being a man.

The truth was straightforward: I liked the ladies. I enjoyed a little flirtation, what they call frisson. Sometimes I collected phone numbers like I was still in college, but 99.997% of the time it ended there. I just liked to know that I still had it. Harmless, right?

Imperfect, but Roy is fully undeserving of the unjust sentence and its wrecking-ball effect on his life, and that of his wife, and their parents.

Realistic in its events, characters and ending, it would be a heartless reader indeed who is not moved by this novel.

Roy: “What happened to me could happen to anybody”.

Andre: “You think I don’t know that? I been black all my life.”