‘An American Marriage’ Author Breaks Down Her Morehouse, Spelman Characters And Ongoing Protests
With ongoing protests around the world over police brutality, Tayari Jones joined “Morning Edition” host Lisa Rayam to put her book, “An American Marriage,” into context and discuss the human cost of injustice.
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Atlanta-based author Tayari Jones tells the saga of a young black man falsely accused and wrongly convicted of rape in her novel, “An American Marriage.” The book won last year’s Women’s Prize for Fiction, was chosen for Oprah’s Book Club, and it also won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
With ongoing protests around the world over police brutality, Jones joined “Morning Edition” host Lisa Rayam to put her book into context and discuss the human cost of injustice.
“I think my book is very clear that the way racism in the criminal justice system is ruining people’s lives,” Jones said.
Like the two college students–from Spelman College and Morehouse College–who were pulled from their vehicle by Atlanta police officers during George Floyd protests, the middle-class couple in Jones’ book also graduated from those HBCUs. Yet, the book’s main characters are still black in America, and their marriage is torn apart by a false police report.
“The people in my book are concentrating on their marriage; they have little problems,” Jones said.
“And like any other human being, this is what’s on their mind when this racism strikes them. For a moment, they were living their individual human lives, and then this inhuman thing strikes them.”
Jones says the hopelessness, doubt and fears depicted in her book coincide with what’s happening now with calls for social justice.
“I really am questioning, in this novel and my own life, can you live your whole life looking over your shoulder?”
Jones is a graduate of Spelman College, the University of Iowa, and Arizona State University. She joined the faculty of Emory’s Creative Writing Program in Fall 2018.
The book was recently a topic of discussion for Emory’s ongoing virtual book club.
Lily Oppenheimer contributed to this report.
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