An American Marriage

“‘If I didn’t know better, I would think that you were trying to sabotage our marriage, the baby, everything.’ She said it like it was all my fault, as though it were possible to tango alone.” 

Celestial points this out immediately after Roy spoils the romantic mood in the hotel by suddenly spilling the news about his biological father. Celestial’s observation raises the troubling question of how stable the marriage is even before Roy’s arrest.  

“Memory is a queer creature, an eccentric curator.” 

Before Celestial shares her recollections of Roy’s arrest and trial, she reassures us that her memory has not obscured those recollections, nor has what has since happened between her and Roy colored the clarity of her memory. This, she tells us, is what happened.

“Love is the enemy of sound judgment, and occasionally this is in service of the good.” 

When Celestial returns from her year away at Howard University, her affair with a married professor, and her subsequent abortion, her mother lovingly counsels her that the heart takes us in directions that often prove disastrous. Her mother, who met Celestial’s father when he was married to someone else, reminds Celestial that sometimes those mistakes provide us with the most rewarding experiences of love. 

“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.” 

Even as the trial unfolds, Celestial cannot bring herself to believe that the miscarriage of justice that appears imminent will actually happen. She is sure that she and Roy will return to their comfortable home and that the risks facing young black men would once more be conceptual rather than lived. 

“This is painful to ask, but if we had more faith, would things have worked out differently? What if it was a test? What if we kept the baby?” 

Roy’s observation, made in a letter to Celestial, is as honest as it is painful. He told Celestial not to have the child and to go through with the abortion. Now, losing their son devastates Roy. 

“At night, if I concentrate, I can touch your body with my mind. I wonder if you can feel it in your sleep.” 

In prison, Roy wants to believe in the sort of love that withstands separation, yet this statement is sadly ironic. We know what Roy does not know: Celestial has already sought the comfort of Roy’s best friend. 

“I can’t go on being your wife. In some ways I feel like I never even got to try my hand at that role.” 

Celestial sends her breakup letter to Roy with a phrasing that indicates confusion. This is hardly a clear request for a divorce but rather an existential declaration in which Celestial reveals uncertainty about her own identity.

“I can’t dangle from your string.”

This plea from Roy’s prison letters to Celestial mirrors Celestial’s own declaration cased in the negative. It is a declaration of what Roy cannot do rather than what he can do. Roy, proud and angry, sees this radical severance of their relationship as the only way to maintain his sanity and pride in prison. 

“Even while she wore his ring, she wasn’t his wife. She was merely a married woman.” 

Dre, sympathetic and reflective, introduces the question of the critical difference between being a wife and a married woman. For him, this difference is not a matter of semantics. It speaks to the heart of his moral code.  

“You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan.” 

Dre is discussing his commitment to keep Celestial, but the observation speaks to the moral and ethical core of the novel. Love is not easy, static, or consistent; those who dare to risk love must be prepared to evolve and grow. 

“[…] Celestial says she doesn’t believe in marriage anymore. ‘Til death do us part’ is unreasonable, a recipe for failure. I asked her, ‘So what do you believe in?’ She said, ‘I believe in communion.’ As for me, I’m modern and traditional at the same time. I, too, believe in intimacy—who doesn’t? But I also believe in commitment.” 

It is easy to dismiss Celestial here as two-faced given that she has undermined her own her commitment to Roy by refusing to play the long-suffering, faithful wife. Celestial’s sincerity is nonetheless arresting. She cannot abandon Roy; she cannot do without Dre. 

“Innocent or not, prison changes you, makes you into a convict.” 

An American Marriage explores the impact of mass incarceration on a generation of young black men. Guilty or innocent, these young black men often come out of prison worse than when they went in. The conditions of imprisonment harden their hearts, rob them of their dignity and their identity, and make ironic any gesture toward trust. 

“Human emotion is beyond comprehension, smooth and uninterrupted, like an orb made of blown glass.” 

Celestial ponders the circumstances of her loves, how feeling love and understanding love are entirely different ideas. 

“This is personal. Just me and my wife. I need to cover her with my own hands.” 

This is the novel’s only moment of unironic love. At Olive’s funeral, Big Roy stays behind at the cemetery and insists in one final gesture of their commitment to be the one who covers the casket.  

“With hand and mouth, she touched my entire body, leaving no small parcel of skin unloved. She moved over, and under, and maybe even through me. Whichever part of me she wasn’t loving was on fire, hoping it would catch her attention next.” 

Davina, by Roy’s admission, “fucks [him] back to health” (203). This moment when she and Roy first make love electrifies the narrative. The sex is unprotected, a suggestion of immediacy and intimacy that Roy and Celestial’s lovemaking does not possess. 

“I don’t believe that blood makes a family; kin is the circle you create, hands held tight […] It matters that I didn’t grow up with my father. It’s kind of like having one leg that’s a half inch shorter than the other. You can walk, but there will be a dip.” 

Dre admits that his own father, who abandoned Dre’s family when he was young, cannot be defined as kin. Nevertheless, a man needs his father. There is a void in Dre that drives him when he is most confused over Celestial to seek out the advice of his father. 

“That one word, Mama, was my only prayer as I thrashed on the ground like I was feeling the Holy Ghost, only what I was going through wasn’t rapture. I spasmed on the cold black earth in pain, physical pain.” 

Throughout his five-year ordeal, Roy works not to show emotion. Only when he finally visits his mother’s grave after his release from prison does he permit himself to cry—and the crying turns quickly into a keening, a soulful cleansing: a ritual catharsis that in turn prepares him to reunite with Celestial.  

“I could ask for understanding. I could ask for temperance, but I wouldn’t ask him to forgive me. Celestial and I were not wrong. It was a complex situation, but we were not on our knees before him.” 

The novel refuses to vilify any of the three lovers. When Dre acknowledges he cannot find it in himself to regret his involvement with a woman he has loved his entire life, he sets the complicated moral tone that defines this love triangle. All three are both wrong and right. 

“Daddy said, ‘At some point you will come to accept your limitations.’

‘Do you accept yours?’ I asked, with a challenge in my voice.

‘But of course, Ladybug. That’s what marriage teaches you.’ And I laughed at that, too, as he spun me dizzy. ‘Not my marriage. It’s going to be different.’” 

This advice, given to Celestial by her father at her wedding, reflects a sense that marriage works only if the two involved relinquish some element of their autonomy in return for the stability and security of a relationship. Celestial, of course, does not—and her marriage collapses while she learns about herself. 

“‘We need protection,’ I said, filling my mouth with the word, feeling its weight on my tongue.” 

At their reunion, in bed for the first time in more than five years, Celestial demands Roy wear a condom. She not only ruins the moment but reestablishes separation between the two. 

“‘Like they say, weeping endures for a night.’ ‘But joy comes in the morning,’ I finished.” 

In a phone call between Davina and Roy in which Roy struggles to see whether he and Davina might have a future, they actually complete this quote together. It is taken from Psalm 30. The quote suggests the larger movement within the novel toward affirmation and connection. 

“What I want to ask you is if you are sure that she is the woman for you. Is she the wife for the real person you are?” 

The question, posed by Olive in a letter to Roy shortly before Roy and Celestial marry, triggers Roy’s outbursts against Celestial’s car and then the tree. The question surely nags anyone committing to marriage, but for Roy the question is particularly troubling. 

“The vast generosity of women is a mysterious tunnel, and nobody knows where it leads. The writing on the wall spells out trick questions, and as a man, you must know that you cannot reason your way out.” 

In the end, Roy accepts the mystery of women. Celestial cannot be defined by the two men who love her and fight over her. In this epiphany, Roy accepts how much he knows but how little he understands about Celestial.