Be Our Valentine: An Evening with Tayari Jones

A 2018 Oprah's Book Club Selection!Novelist Tayari Jones reads and discusses her new book, An American Marriage.An American Marriage is a stirring love story and an insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. 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.Tayari Jones is the author of three previous novels: Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling and Silver Sparrow. A winner of numerous literary awards, she is an associate professor in the MFA program at Rutgers-Newark University. She is spending the 2017-18 academic year as the Shearing Fellow for Distinguished Writers at Black Mountain Institute, University of Nevada Las Vegas. Presented in partnership with CityLit Project.Recorded On: Wednesday, February 14, 2018