Each person has a voice a powerful, persuasive voice. It is largely told in a series of short chapters written in the first person, from the point of view of Roy, Celestial and later Andre. Add in steady, dependable Andre, mutual friend and long time admirer of Celestial and the scene is set for heartbreak. The novel is the story of their time apart, how they cope and what this ordeal means for their marriage. Roy is wrongly imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit.

An American Marriage is the story of Roy and Celestial, a black, recently married couple living in the USA. So after a rather long winded justification of my blogging choices, lets move on to the book.

So in short, this review has a distinct lack of Greek myth vibe. I could brush up on The Odyssey but it wouldn’t be an honest representation of what i found when I read this book. However I have decided that this review will be what all the others before it have been my initial and personal response to the novel based on what I saw and the knowledge I brought. Should I delay my review, while I did a bit more research? I was left wondering whether I needed to reassess my responses in the light of this new knowledge. It brought to my rather limited attention that An American Marriage was a retelling of the myth of Penelope and Odysseus, and it was something I hadn’t connected with at all. As usual it was insightful and entertaining, but it did throw me a curve ball. I was all set to go and then I watched Simon Women’s Prize Final Thoughts with his lovely mum Louise. As always I like to let a book settle before I try to review it, take a little bit of time to gather my thoughts before I put words down.

To be fair I finished An American Marriage a few days ago. I managed to squeeze it in just in the nick of time, before the winner’s announcement on 5th June. The completion of this book marked the end of a personal mission my quest to read all of the shortlisted Women’s Prize novels.

An american marriage review