Ep 730 - An American Marriage, by Tayari Jones

Summary

Overdue Podcast – Ep 730: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Date: November 24, 2025
Hosts: Craig and Andrew

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Craig and Andrew dive into Tayari Jones’s acclaimed novel An American Marriage, dissecting its nuanced portrayal of love, injustice, family, and the burdens placed on Black American lives by the carceral system. The hosts discuss Jones’s sources of inspiration, the book’s character-driven approach to serious themes, and the difficult choices its protagonists face. They also reflect on the book’s popular success—having landed on both Oprah’s Book Club and Barack Obama’s reading list—and what that signals about its style and appeal.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Book’s Reputation and Approach (09:08–11:36)

• An American Marriage is widely recognized for being both accessible and profound, dealing with difficult subjects (“Not a laugh riot,” Craig notes [09:40]) without becoming overly didactic or abstract.
• The book balances addressing “issues that people have every day” without being polemical or didactic: “She’s not making an explicit political argument as much as she is saying these are some people. Their lives are real messy, and I want them to be okay.” (Craig, 13:06)
• The story is more about “good people in bad circumstances” than simply “bad things happening” [07:14].

2. Tayari Jones: Background and Intentions (13:34–16:51)

• Jones was inspired by her Atlanta upbringing and personal/familial experiences, as well as the broader social context of Black life in America.
• Early in the writing process, she was challenged to write about “people and their problems, not problems and their people”—an ethos that sharpens the novel’s character-driven focus [12:36].
• Much of Jones’s prior work investigated her own family dynamics, while An American Marriage intentionally looked outward to “take on something that mattered to others, not just me.” (Andrew, quoting Jones’s interview with Oprah, 17:04)

3. Mass Incarceration: The Background, Not the Plot (11:36–13:21)

• Jones’s research into mass incarceration shaped the book, but she realized “mass incarceration is not a plot, it’s not a story, it’s not a character” (Andrew, 12:19).
• The book thus roots itself in personal stakes: marriage, failures, and the ambiguity of real lives upended by injustice.

4. The Real-Life Inspiration for the Story (20:54–22:12)

• Jones’s breakthrough came from “eavesdropping” on a couple arguing in public about waiting for each other through hardship—a conversation that lands almost verbatim in the novel [21:02].

  “She hears the woman say, ‘You wouldn’t have waited on me for seven years.’ And the man says, ‘This wouldn’t have happened to you in the first place.’ And the woman says, ‘Tell the truth. Would you have waited for me?’” (Craig, 21:02)

5. Title & Thematic Scope (22:49–23:32)

• “An American Marriage” was not Jones’s first title, but her editor pushed her to claim the word “American” as encompassing Black experience—challenging Jones’s initial association of “American” with white suburban narratives.
• The title acts as a springboard for thinking about identity, belonging, and citizenship without qualifiers [22:49].

6. Plot Overview and Character Dynamics (27:00–37:24)

• Roy and Celestial—an ambitious young Black couple in Atlanta, with roots in different socioeconomic backgrounds, and a marriage both loving and imperfect.

• Their fragile equilibrium is shattered when Roy is falsely accused and imprisoned for a crime he did not commit while they visit his family in small-town Louisiana.

  “He helps an old woman at the motel. Later that night, she gets attacked, pins Roy as the assailant, and he’s swept away by the system.” (Craig, 40:44)

• The book is told through alternating perspectives—including letters—offering both Roy’s and Celestial’s internal accounts, plus input from Andre (Celestial’s lifelong friend).

• The first chapters emphasize normal marital struggles—secrets about family, expectations, fidelity—foreshadowing the seismic rupture to come [35:28].

7. Courtroom and Prison: What’s Shown and What’s Not (42:12–44:32)

• The story deliberately skips over procedural courtroom drama and extended prison detail, instead immersing readers in characters’ emotional lives, particularly Celestial’s experience as she tries to defend Roy in court and later as she strives to move forward outside [42:12, 47:49].

• The futility and heartbreak of the trial are captured in Celestial’s internal struggle:

  “She’s to be well spoken and articulate, but that is inherently distancing... But at the same time, were she not to be articulate, then she would be seen as a stereotype and not credible in that way. So could she actually have saved him with her testimony? I don’t know. I know she blames herself, but I don’t know that she could have saved him.” (Andrew, quoting Jones, 43:01)

8. Letters as a Narrative Device (48:19–53:41)

• After Roy’s incarceration, much of the novel relies on an extended epistolary section. Letters are undated, creating a slippery sense of time and revealing character developments with dramatic impact.

  “…both of them remark on the fact that they are not used to writing letters.…Neither of them have complete information about the other’s experience… You only get it in these letters back and forth. It’s a really cool device.” (Craig, 48:45)

• The hosts note how letter-writing highlights the couple’s separation and emotional dissonance—Celestial’s growing independence versus Roy’s increasing desperation for connection.

9. Celestial’s Dilemma and Roy’s Disintegration (53:41–60:03)

• Celestial’s artistic success—crafted from her pain and Roy’s image—becomes both a triumph and a wedge between them, especially when she does not publicly acknowledge Roy’s situation.

• This culminates in a gutting “Dear John” letter:

  “What we have here isn’t a marriage. A marriage is more than your heart. It’s your life, and we are not sharing ours.” (read by Craig, 59:57)

• The hosts sympathize with both characters, noting how the book refuses easy answers or “permission” for either to be simply right or wrong.

10. Release and Aftermath: Ill-Fitting Endings (60:18–70:23)

• Roy’s conviction is vacated after five years. In the meantime, Celestial has begun a relationship with Andre, her childhood friend.

• The hosts wonder at the lack of restitution:

  “They should just give you a bunch of big burlap sacks with dollar signs… It doesn’t fix anything, but…” (Andrew, 61:43)

• The final act is a series of confrontations: Roy, Celestial, and Andre sorting out the shards of their love triangle.

• The ending is ambiguous and unsatisfying in a “true-to-life” way: “Everyone is content but a little bit unhappy—or at least a little bit, maybe more. But they’ve all found a version of contentment that might last them for the rest of their lives.” (Craig, 69:07)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Are there good things? Any good things in there?” —Andrew, [07:14]
• “She needs to write about people and their problems, not problems and their people.” —Craig, referencing Jones’s mentor, [12:36]
• “Mass incarceration is not a plot, it's not a story, it's not a character.” —Andrew, quoting Jones, [12:19]
• “This is a book about the problems of jail, but you’re going to jail.” —Craig, joking about Andrew's correction, [13:46]
• “Celestial, 18 months into their marriage, that his dad is not his biological father and that his original father, you know, knocked up his mom and then skipped out... Celestial's response is like, why are you like this with secrets?” —Craig, [35:52–36:14]
• “It's an honor to be nominated from afar.” —Andrew, on finding validation in flirtation, [38:07]
• “Tell the truth. Would you have waited for me?” —Jones, via real-life eavesdropped conversation, [21:02]; also a pivotal line in the book
• “Roy, being true to Celestial costs him nothing and gives him kind of a focal point… Her being on the outside, being true to him, comes at a huge cost.” —Andrew, [54:44]
• “What we have here isn’t a marriage. A marriage is more than your heart. It’s your life, and we are not sharing ours.” —Celestial’s letter, [59:57]
• “Everyone is content but a little bit unhappy.” —Craig, regarding the ending, [69:07]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [09:08] – Cultural reputation of the book (Oprah & Obama endorsement)
• [11:36] – Author’s intent: writing about individuals impacted by mass incarceration
• [20:54] – The eavesdropped conversation that catalyzed the novel
• [22:49] – The significance of the title “An American Marriage”
• [27:00] – Introduction to Roy, Celestial, and supporting characters; the set-up of their relationship
• [40:44] – The inciting incident: Roy’s wrongful accusation and arrest
• [48:19] – Letters from prison: narrative and emotional function
• [54:44] – Celestial’s conflicting obligations; Roy’s pain and Jones’s depiction of both sides
• [59:57] – Celestial’s “Dear John” letter
• [60:18] – Post-prison: Roy’s release, Andre’s involvement, and the love triangle
• [69:07] – Reflections on the book’s messy but authentic ending

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Host Reflections & Closing Thoughts

• The hosts repeatedly praise Jones’s refusal to lean on easy villainy or idealization, noting the realism in her depiction of all the main characters. The feelings of frustration or anger toward Celestial, Roy, or Andre are testaments to the book’s ability to provoke thought and identification—“an endorsement of the book, even if they’re kind of frustrated.” (Craig, 69:07)
• Andrew and Craig suggest the book’s emphasis on interiority, character ethics, and irresolution makes it especially resonant—and probably better suited to a film adaptation than a TV miniseries.
• “Who am I to argue with Obama and Oprah?” —Craig, [70:23]

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Final Recommendation

Both Craig and Andrew recommend An American Marriage for readers interested in nuanced, human stories about love, injustice, and resilience, especially those looking for thoughtful contemporary fiction shaped by real-life issues.

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For further engagement:

• Send feedback or thoughts to the hosts at "overdupodmail.com"
• Visit overdupodcast.com for upcoming episode lists and ways to support the show

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Recommended By: Oprah, Obama, Craig, and, now, you at home.
“The Mount Rushmore of book recommenders.” —Andrew, [72:50]

Transcript

[Andrew]

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[Craig]

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[Craig]

Yeah.

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That sounds.

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[Craig]

I'm reading the same copy and it looks the same good to me.

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[Craig]

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[Craig]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

[Andrew]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Craig]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig.

[Andrew]

My name is Andrew.

[Craig]

Hi Andrew. How's it going?

[Andrew]

Hi Craig. It's going. It's going well. How are you doing?

[Craig]

I'm Fine. Nice to see you here at our book podcast.

[Andrew]

Yes, it's a pleasure to interact with you as it always is. Every week on our.

[Craig]

Excited to explain. Explain, explain. Exchange human dialogue with you.

[Andrew]

Yeah, just exchange some ideas. So every week on our exchange of ideas, we sort of get together and cordially greet each other and. Just polite and. Yeah, just polite. And then we. One of us tells the other one about a book that we read that we've never read before.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's how it works.

[Andrew]

And they. And everybody learns a little and laughs a little and loves a little. Lives a little.

[Craig]

Lives a lot.

[Andrew]

Lives a lot. Craig, what book?

[Craig]

What?

[Andrew]

Craig, my friend, what book did you read this week?

[Craig]

Oh, Andrew, perchance you would like me to tell you about.

[Andrew]

Oh, I would love if you would tell me.

[Craig]

Let me tip my hat. An American Marriage by Tayari Jones.

[Andrew]

Interesting. Is this the book you and I have? The most American marriage of all, which is that we have a small business together.

[Craig]

It's true. That's what the founders wanted. They wanted everybody to start limited liability corporations.

[Andrew]

But my understanding is not that. Is that this. That's not the kind of American marriage that this book is about.

[Craig]

No, it is most certainly not. It is not about a limited partnership that indemnifies your spouses from any legal obligations.

[Andrew]

Sure. I mean, it seems like it really commits spouses to obligations to each other.

[Craig]

That is really what this book. It's. This book is a. Is about a lot of things. Some of them bad, bad things. Some of them sad. Some of them.

[Andrew]

Are there good things? Any good things in there?

[Craig]

There are a few good things. They're mostly good people in bad circumstances.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

I'm saying these words having just read this book and prep to talk about it, but I recognize that I'm just describing a lot of books.

[Andrew]

You're just describing. Many, many stories have these elements in them.

[Craig]

Call me the new Joseph Campbell book.

[Andrew]

There's a protagonist. There's a protagonist. There is a. There's a sort of a plot. There's a beginning, a middle and an end, I assume there is.

[Craig]

There are those.

[Andrew]

There's even an epilogue again in 700 and whatever episodes. We haven't done this. But when the time comes that one of us has to do an episode for a book that we didn't actually read or finish and we have to do the grade school book report based on the dust jacket, like I suspect it's gonna sound a lot like the last like two and a half minutes, probably.

[Craig]

That's what I think but no, I have never read this book before prepping it for the show. Andrew, you have read any Terry Jones?

[Andrew]

I have not. I've read of her.

[Craig]

I think I found this book on a. I was trolling through the list of winners for the women's prize of. For fiction because it.

[Andrew]

Trolling, perhaps.

[Craig]

Was that. Did I say trolling?

[Andrew]

You sure did.

[Craig]

Rub the little jewel on my belly. I got it wrong. The book was published in 2018. I think it won the woman's prize in 2019. Was long listed for the National Book Award. It was on, I think Oprah loved.

[Andrew]

Was an Oprah's Book Club book and it was on Barack Hussein Obama's summer reading list that year.

[Craig]

I love those little IG squares that he puts out and then his later.

[Andrew]

Like regular reading list later in the year, I think.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

I feel like hitting the Oprah and Obama.

[Craig]

It's pretty good.

[Andrew]

I feel like it primes you for a certain kind of book. Which is to say like, this book is going to deal with some serious ideas, but it's not going to try to get too fancy about it. This is, this is a book that can do difficult things, but it is not trying to be like super obtuse or like hyper literary. I don't think, like, I think that is generally this.

[Craig]

When you mean hyper literary. You mean like Pynchon? You mean like postmodern?

[Andrew]

Yeah, I mean like hard to read. I mean the author, I mean the author of the book wants you to have a bad time reading the book, which is not what people. That's not what people come to Oprah or Obama for.

[Craig]

No, no. They come to them each for many different.

[Andrew]

I'm just saying that is where the Venn diagram over overlaps.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I don't think Oprah, like, I don't think every Oprah book, like the Secret, for example, an Oprah book. I don't think every Oprah book is like that.

[Craig]

But she just.

[Andrew]

When I, when I, when I saw that this book, one reason why it achieved sort of an escape velocity from the general cloud of cloud of fiction that's published every year. When I saw it was an Oprah and Obama joint, I was like, okay, that puts me in a, in a, in a headspace for what kind of story it's going.

[Craig]

Sure, sure.

[Andrew]

I think what you described, where it's like not, it's. It's. It's primarily got like some sad or difficult things in it. Like your first, the first word you used to describe it was not like laugh riot.

[Craig]

No, it is not a laugh riot. I do think it is interesting talking about who put it on their list. You know, I think it's worth saying though, that Oprah did put the road on her list back in the day.

[Andrew]

Sure. But did Obama?

[Craig]

I don't know that Obama was doing list when he was.

[Andrew]

I mean, was he. Maybe he was doing them and just nobody read.

[Craig]

Well, they're classified.

[Andrew]

Maybe he's just like, maybe he's just like a little state legislator in Illinois. Like, well, this is my book list. And everybody's like, Brock, who cares? Nobody cares about this.

[Craig]

He was a blogger.

[Andrew]

He was just handing post its to Michelle. And she was like, that's great, honey.

[Craig]

This is, this is wonderful time to read this. No. So the book. And we can talk about Jones in just a second. But I think relevant to this discussion. I want to bring up. She writes about this in the afterword of the novel and also has talked about it in. There's a really good interview with her in the Paris Review.

[Andrew]

Yeah, I got quite a few quotes.

[Craig]

But she talks about. She was, she'd written a few books when she embarked on this one. She had a research fellowship at Harvard and was keen on writing about mass incarceration and just the prison industrial complex stealing away black men in particular. And she was having trouble turning her research into a novel. I think it might have been that Paris Review article where she talks about. She likes novels that have ambiguity in them and there is nothing ambiguous to her about mass incarceration and what is going on there. So for.

[Andrew]

Yeah, she, she was also saying, when I first started writing, I was thinking of it as a book about mass incarceration and mass incarceration is not a plot, it's not a story, it's not a character.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

She, she feels like, she feels, she felt like she had a lot of background information, but that she had not found the, like, human through line yet.

[Craig]

And she, she also says a mentor told her that she needs to write about people and their problems, not problems and their people, which is an interesting way to think about it. And so it is, it is an issue book. Right. In the sense that it is dealing with issues that people have every day. But it is not. I wouldn't say it's like polemical. I don't think it's very didactic. It is not making a political Mr.

[Andrew]

Vocab word over here.

[Craig]

Listen, those are the best words to use in the moment. She's not making a, an explicit political argument as much as she is saying these are some people. Their lives are real messy, and I want them to be okay.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And here's maybe how they might get there and, you know, what happens to them along the way. But I have another, like, germ of where this book came from. But maybe we'll get there after you tell me a bit more about Tayari Jones. Andrew?

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure. I've got a few more things. She was born in 1970. She's an American author currently. The Charles Howard Chandler. Could she be anymore? The Charles Howard Chandler professor of Creative Writer Writing at Emory University.

[Craig]

Okay. This is a book about the problems of jail, but you're going to jail. You can't say that.

[Andrew]

Mass incarceration, Craig, is not, is not a. It's not a plot, it's not a story. It's not a character. You can't just send me to jail and have all your problems go away. She was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, which serves as a backdrop for several of her stories. She has talked about the. The Atlanta murders that happened between 1979 and 1981, where, like, about 30ish, like, black children, teenagers, and some adults were killed, including two classmates of hers. It was a formative childhood event for her. This is my, this is my Wikipedia whole of the week just down. It's terrible about the, about the guy who did it and some, like, more recent efforts to, like, retest some of that DNA evidence. Because while the, like, the kind of murder that. That was happening stopped after they arrested this guy, like, not everybody, like, not all the crimes attributed to him are ones that he's been, like, convicted of. So there, there have been some efforts, and I think some of the families have, have pushed for this to, like, reopen things and retest things like modern technology and get more closure. But those efforts haven't really gone much of anywhere.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

In recent years. But she attends Spelman College, which is an HBCU in Atlanta. She receives a master's in English from the University of Iowa, though. I mean, I looked. I did not see evidence that I. She had done the Writers Workshop. So she's adjacent. She's Writers Workshop adjacent. But I don't.

[Craig]

She said, I'm good out here.

[Andrew]

And then she got an MFA from Arizona State University. And I think that's where she started writing her first novel.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

She's written and published four as of this recording, leaving Atlanta in 2002, the Untelling in 2005, which is also based in Atlanta, Silver Sparrow in 2011, and then this, and then as of the interview Circuit for this book for American Marriage. She had told the Women's prize people in an interview that she had just moved back to Atlanta after being in New York for a decade and was trying to write something about whether you can go back.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

My. I mean, spoiler for that book probably is that you can't. You famously can't go back. But I'm curious to see where she finds the nuance in that, though.

[Craig]

You never step in the same river twice. Yeah, right.

[Andrew]

It's always moving, baby.

[Craig]

Yeah. I. That is one of my favorite. The river one. Idiomatic metaphors. I just like it. It.

[Andrew]

Just because you're not. Because you're not the same. You're not the same boy. And it's not the same river.

[Craig]

Yeah, I know it, man. Even if there was a squirrel there, that squirrel's different. He's watching you step in a river. It's a different squirrel. They don't even live that long, squirrels, probably. It probably is a different squirrel.

[Andrew]

As we. As we talked about. This is published in 2018. This is. It gets the Oprah Book Club thing, like, right out of the gate. Oprah must have the arcs that she got. And then Barack Obama's summer reading list. It's awarded the Women's Prize for Fiction, the Aspen Words Prize, and an NAACP Image Award.

[Craig]

Y.

[Andrew]

Apparently, the way that you say NAACP says something about, like, how old you are, I think different. Like, different generations refer to the organization.

[Craig]

Slightly differently as the na.

[Andrew]

Just a fun fact. Yeah.

[Craig]

Huh?

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

All right.

[Andrew]

Anyways, she tells Oprah, my earlier novels were all about me trying to sort out the complications of my own family. With Silver Sparrow, I felt like I put that baby to bed. And with all the chaos in the world, I wanted to look outward and take on something that mattered to others, not just me. We've talked a little bit about how different authors responded to, like, the first Trump term. Keeping in mind that this comes out in 2018, and I can definitely see looking out at the world as it was and still is and being like, what can I. What can I say that is larger, that is about, you know, like, a bigger injustice at this time where people seem to be becoming more. More aware of injustice.

[Craig]

I think she says, yes, I know exactly what you mean. I think she says in the afterword, though, that she had her. She had her Harvard Fellowship in 2011. Yeah.

[Andrew]

I'm not saying she wrote all of it then. It's just.

[Craig]

Yeah, well, and. And I. What I. What I do want to highlight, though, is, like. And then 2012 is when Trayvon Martin is killed. And it's just like it kind of kicks off the 2000 and tens modern understanding for a lot of us of what is going on here.

[Andrew]

As that decade goes on like this, this becomes more, more in the news, more harder and harder to ignore, even though some people were and still are very committed to the project of ignoring it.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

There was some noise about a film adaptation of this, but never went much of anywhere like Bustle reported in 2018 that Oprah was attached as a producer based on one tweet of Oprah's from February of 2018. Wikipedia claims that Paramount Pictures had bought.

[Craig]

Oh, it's on the Mountain at some point.

[Andrew]

But I can find literally no corroborating evidence for this. I'm surprised in any, any case, there's been no news about it since, since then that like initial buzz of this book just came out. Famous people want to make it a movie and then it disappears.

[Craig]

And I will say I would think it would work better as a movie than a book. Not as a book.

[Andrew]

You heard it here first.

[Craig]

I missed.

[Andrew]

Before Craig even talks about the book.

[Craig]

He'S like, o, this book.

[Andrew]

No, I meant to say she picked the wrong format.

[Craig]

My tongue is tied. I meant to say better than a TV show. I didn't mean as a book. I meant it's a great book. You're right.

[Andrew]

You're getting, you're getting a little Seinfeld. I need you to wind it back.

[Craig]

I'm roasting over here in my Ms. Speech. No, I don't. I think it has the focus, particularly in the cast of like a good two hour drama. I would not want to see this adapted into a.

[Andrew]

Do not want to see an eight episode HBO limited miniseries, Apple TV plus limited miniseries.

[Craig]

And part of it is because the, the book is not structured like a courtroom drama. It is not structured like a mystery. You can imagine. And I think maybe she even thought going in that it, given the subject matter that's where it would go. And it is instead a character driven. It's not a romance, but people are in love. It is a love story, I suppose. And it's about a marriage that falls apart. It is. There's very little. There are snippets of Roy's life in prison, but it is not even really about that other than what it does to his the rest of his life. And she says that she found her way into writing the novel, you know, stuck, unable to turn her research into a plot. She was visiting. I think she Was visiting Atlanta, visiting family in Atlanta, and heard a couple at, like, a food court or something.

[Andrew]

And this, she likes to say. She likes to use the word eavesdropping. She got the. She got the idea from the book, from eavesdropping.

[Craig]

And she hears the woman say, you know, you wouldn't have waited on me for seven years. And the man says, this wouldn't have happened to you in the first place. And the woman says, tell the truth. Would you have waited for me? And this is basically verbatim in the novel. And she doesn't learn much more about them other than this is a fight that they're probably gonna carry with them for the rest of their life. In a way, Susanna would have died.

[Andrew]

Like, one time we were in New York, like, going somewhere, and she passed by a lady who was arguing really, really loud with, like, the. The driver of a bus that was, like, sitting and waiting to.

[Craig]

Oh, man.

[Andrew]

To leave. And she. To this day, is like, what were they fighting about? What was that lady so mad about? She loves to overhear this kind of stuff and then be like, man, I do not have enough information.

[Craig]

I was in the airport today, and we're walking through the terminal after we get out of our plane, and a guy, I think is restocking a kiosk, and I just hear him clear as day to say, peanut butter and jelly.

[Andrew]

Peanut butter and jelly. Man, what true words never spoken.

[Craig]

I don't think he was talking to anyone. Talking to me, to my soul.

[Andrew]

Last bit about the title. And then we can. I mean, I have some other. Other stuff from the Paris Review interview and. And elsewhere, but I think we can. We can get to them in line. But why the title? An American Marriage. This is. In an interview with the Washington Independent, she says, this actually wasn't my first title or my second. I threw it out as my editor and I were brainstorming. He really liked it, but I was apprehensive. To me, An American Marriage sounded like a novel about a white suburban couple contemplating divorce. My editor asked me why I thought American meant white suburban. And it forced me to really think about questions of identity and citizenship.

[Craig]

Mm.

[Andrew]

Trying to come. Trying to overcome your own internalized sort of impressions of what. What different words mean and who gets to claim them. I just thought it was interesting.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think once I knew what the book was about, American takes on a lot of different connotations in terms of the layers of oppression that are happening in the book.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

But I can see why someone would think differently.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And she, she's also talked at other points about like the thinking. Trying to think of herself as an American without like an adjective in front of it. Like as a black woman.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And just like having that inform her thinking about this. This too. So. Yeah. Neat stuff.

[Craig]

Neat stuff.

[Andrew]

That's what I say. So I think we should take a break and then you can tell me about this book that you think should have been a movie.

[Craig]

That's not what I meant to say.

[Andrew]

That is what you said.

[Craig]

It is what I said. O. Andrew. This week's episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. Sometimes I want to give a gift that brings my memories to life. Don't you?

[Andrew]

Yes. I mean, sometimes I want a gift.

[Craig]

That helps me relive my holiday traditions.

[Andrew]

Sometimes I want a gift that helps me forget. You know, like sometimes I want to remember and sometimes I don't.

[Craig]

Well, I think an aura frame can do that for you. Andrew, what holiday traditions do you have?

[Andrew]

Traveling. Oh, and yeah. Thoughtful gifts. Giving. Those are gifts giver. Yeah.

[Craig]

When I was a child, we used to wait at the top of the stairs while an adult went downstairs to make sure that Santa wasn't still there. I don't really know.

[Andrew]

If you surprise him while he's doing.

[Craig]

His B and E, all the gifts go away.

[Andrew]

Then it can. Yeah, it can go bad.

[Craig]

Now I don't have a photo of this, of me as a child doing this, but if I did, I would want to give it as a gift. And aura frames allow you to give memories as gifts. You just download the aura app, you connect it to WI Fi and you upload unlimited free photos and videos. You can personalize the frame with a message. You can preload the photos before it ships. We did that last year for my in laws. It was so simple. All they had to do was open the box, turn on the frame, connect it to the Internet and bam. There were photos of their grandson. It was amazing.

[Andrew]

Our frames are. They're such in law bait. I feel like that's. That we can't oversell. There's so many in laws like this stuff. Yeah.

[Craig]

And I do think I've said before, my mom has one at her house and Simon loves. It's just a Simon box and he loves looking at it himself. So like give the gift of somebody's self with an aura frame. You can do it. You can't rap togetherness, Andrew, but you can frame it. So for a limited time, visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling carver Mat frames. They're named number one by wirecutter by using promo code overdue at checkout. That's auraframes.com promo code overdue. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best of the year, so order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. VRBO's last minute deals make chasing fresh mountain powder incredibly easy. With thousands of homes close to the slopes, you can get epic pow freshies, first tracks and more. Find last minute deals with the last minute filter on the app. Book a private vacation rental [e-mail]. Okay, so where should we start, Andrew, do you think?

[Andrew]

I mean, an American marriage? Who's married?

[Craig]

Roy?

[Andrew]

What country are they in?

[Craig]

Okay, they're in America.

[Andrew]

Nice.

[Craig]

They live in Atlanta, though. A decent part of the novel also takes place in elo, Louisiana. Small town, Louisiana. Our married couple are Roy and Celestial. And they are young folks making their way like they are up and coming folks. Right? They are like he.

[Andrew]

Up and coming how? Like professionally, Morally?

[Craig]

He, I think.

[Andrew]

Do they operate a hot air balloon business?

[Craig]

Roy is from elo. He's a decent guy who comes from, you know, meager means. He will tell you that he is like, they were not poor, he would say, but they certainly weren't well off. And he, you know, participated in. He's quick to tell you. And the, the voice of the novel is that each character is kind of like telling the reader their version of the story. I, I think the, the way it goes. Tayari Jones says she first wrote it as a whole novel from Celestial's perspective, then made it a whole novel from Roy's perspective.

[Andrew]

Yeah, she likes to talk about how her, how her early readers did not. When it was just about Celestial, did not like Celestial. And I like, partly because of, because of what happens in the book. People who read it as a book just about Celestial expect it to be a book about like heroically standing by your man and trying to get justice for him. And she's like, that's not what I was trying to do. And it made people bounce off the book because they were, they were just expecting something different than what I was trying to do.

[Craig]

Yep, It's. She made a smart decision, I think. But you get alternating chapters from them and then one other character. And he's always just, he's like, yeah, you know, I, I was in Head Start programs. I was a beneficiary of this program. But I did put in the work and I made it to Morehouse, you know, and so he, I think when we meet him, he has a job like selling textbooks or something. Like, he's like a. Not a glamorous job, but a well paying one. And his whole thing and one that.

[Andrew]

You know that society is going to hear that you, you sell textbooks and everybody like, well, that's, that's a good thing that you do.

[Craig]

Yes, yes. And his whole thing with his marriage to Celeste, Celestial. Excuse me. Sometimes he calls her Georgia as a, as a pet name for Georgia Peach. Okay, well, he's from Louisiana, she's from Georgia. They. They meet.

[Andrew]

No, I get it. Yeah.

[Craig]

I think later. Explain it to me later in the novel. I might tell things out of order from how they're revealed in the novel because it's. The characters are ruminating on their history together at various times.

[Andrew]

That's how we roll here on overdue, baby, in media.

[Craig]

And they do like, ultimately they meet for the first time when they're in college through this guy Andre, who grew up as a childhood friend of Celestials and knows Roy at Morehouse. And then they meet again a few years later up in New York City. He's up there, I think. I think he's traveling for work and she is up there trying to make it as an artist. And because she misses Atlanta, he, you know, he's calling her Georgia Peach and stuff like that. But his whole thing is that with this marriage, he wants to quote, like, situation, sit her down, I think is what he says, like set her down, basically, like, allow her to do what she wants to do. Like he wants to have a job where she can pursue what she wants to pursue, whatever that means. Obviously he wants to start a family and she is not morally opposed to being a mother, but she is not excited about it at this point in their marriage. They're pretty young. They're in their mid-20s, I think, think, yeah, you got tons of tons of maybe late 20s. But she is also an artist of a sort. She makes dolls. She makes like, she makes glass sculptures, she does sketching, but she also makes these like interesting bespoke cloth dolls that they refer to as poupees, which is just French for doll, I think some of it. There's an artist named Face Ringgold who famously made some sculptures involving like Wilt Chamberlain and other folks out of mixed media. But she was also a quilter and painter and she's name checked in the novel as an inspiration for Celestial. So she's got this like, interesting.

[Andrew]

It's good to have something that you can like plug into Google and Be like, okay, I can, I can better visualize the kind of doll that this is.

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And they are not like, like the, the way that they are described throughout the book is that they are high end for toys, but maybe feel some of them not quite like capital A art. And the novel does use like capital A versus lowercase A.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

But she like one of her early things is she like, is clearly inspired by Roy and, and makes things in his image, like a little glass sculpture that looks like a marble, but if you look inside, like the swirled pattern is like his profile. And Roy toys. Well, she could have called them that. And she makes a, you know, a doll that is like kind of the spitting image of him. That becomes a plot point later. She comes from slightly more well off stock than Roy does. Like her. Her dad is a scientist who. I just, I kind of like how this book does little details of characters we only spend a few scenes with where like her dad is a guy. He's got some pride, I wouldn't say issues, but he's a prideful man. That leads to some.

[Andrew]

It could, could be an issue.

[Craig]

Yeah. But he's a good guy and he makes some decent money by making a scientific discovery regarding orange juice separation. Like, it prevents orange juice from separating for longer. And so he like sells it to Minute Maid and like makes a bunch of money. And so, you know, Roy's got kind of a, like I have to prove myself energy with her family and with celestial, like Roy's mom and dad, particularly his mom, is like, is she like on the level with you? Like, does she like you because you're, you are enamored of her? Is she gonna be a good wife to you? Like, this is kind of unspooled throughout the course of the book, but she's just a little worried, like, is this gonna work out? And that I will say so. There's an inciting incident that obviously changes the course of their lives forever. But Jones does work in the first like two chapters just to let you know that like, like this 18 month old marriage is not perfect. There's a lot of love there, there's a lot of passion there. But even they're still kind of like, is this gonna. Is this gonna work like you, you at least the reader, you can see that, like, this is not. This will take work for it to last between the two of them. And so the like opening scene is that they are visiting his family in Louisiana over Labor Day weekend. And you know, it goes, the visit goes fine. It's A little prickly. She's always never sure if she's gonna fit in. They decide to crash in a motel rather than stay with his family. Because that's his idea, I think. Wants it to be a little romantic, you know, and they go to the motel and they're, they're having a fight. They start having a fight. He re as part of this. Like, I think it's part of his campaign to get her ready to have a kid. He's like, I need to tell you something about me. My dad. Big Roy is not my real dad. I do love that his dad's name is Big Roy.

[Andrew]

Big Roy is such a great name for a dad.

[Craig]

I love Big as the moniker when there's a junior because I like, even.

[Andrew]

When there isn't a junior, just call like, if, if you're a big guy, it can be about how you're a big guy. If you're a little guy, it can be a joke about how you're a little guy. Like, they're just you. You can make it fit whatever facts you need it to fit.

[Craig]

Yep. Uh huh.

[Andrew]

Uh huh.

[Craig]

But Roy reveals to Celestial, 18 months into their marriage, that his dad is not his biological father and that his original father, you know, knocked up his mom and then skipped out. And a few months later, Big Roy met his mom and wanted to take care of her. Oh, no.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

He might have been. He might have been born actually when they got married anyway. And Celestial's response is like, why are you like this with secrets? Why did you not like, I'm not upset about this information. I'm upset about that you decided that this was like a thing you wanted to keep from me. And Roy doesn't really have a good answer for keeping it from her other than like, he kind of wants to control the information of his life because it gives him some semblance of control over his life. You also get a few whiffs of arguments that they've had before where, like, Roy has never stepped out on her, but he will, like, let a woman give him his number just to feel good and then, you know, keep the business card for reasons that are unexplainable to anyone, including Roy.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Where do you, where do you stand on that?

[Craig]

I don't think that's great.

[Andrew]

I don't think it's great.

[Craig]

I don't think it's great. I. I am of an opinion that, like, you did that I wouldn't do that. That, that. I think that's as far as I could go. I don't know.

[Andrew]

That's fair.

[Craig]

That's fair. I can also see how it can just happen to you. That is not, this book does not imply that it is just solely happening to Roy. That Roy likes the, he likes the attention, but he also likes having a stable home.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Right. Like, like, yes, I, I am, I'm not going to, to go out and like solicit phone numbers from anybody. But I was, I was always so bad at gauging whether women had an interest in me when I was like on the market.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

If somebody wants to like go out of their way and make it clear to me, I, I will like politely be like, no, I'm not, I'm not available. But I will also be like that. I feel pretty good about somebody thinking that I'm.

[Craig]

It's an honor to be nominated from afar.

[Andrew]

Yeah, it's just an honor. It's an honor to get the, get the attention.

[Craig]

I, I, it is nice to get the attention, but it's nice to get the attention. Roy is, it is clear that Roy maybe invites a little bit more attention than he should. Okay. Even if he's not pursuing, just gives celestial questions. It doesn't make her feel great. So like that's also part of this blow up that they're having with each other. And she almost says something rude about his mom and he invokes November 17, which is there like tells you something about their relationship that they have a like, like let's stop fighting password. It's their anniversary date and if somebody invokes it, they have to stop talking for 15 minutes so they can't make each other matter. And then they can come back and if they want to keep talking, they keep talking or they can, you know, try to move on. So they're in the motel, they're taking a break. She is calling her friend, her childhood friend Andre, who she's pretty close with, to just kind of vent a little bit it later. You get a version of this where Andre's like, yeah, you, that's really whack for him. Like you just need to let him kind of, I understand that you're mad about this, but he's going to tell you what he's going to tell you and if you get upset when he tells you things that he hasn't told you before, then he's never going to tell you anything. So like, yeah, you two need to start working on that. But let's, let's talk about this. We'll talk about Andre. He, Roy leaves the room to go get some ice. And there's, like, a grandma also trying to get ice. And she has.

[Andrew]

Grandmas love ice.

[Craig]

She has a broken arm. He decides to help her. He brings the ice back to her room. She can't open the window in her room. He helps her open the window. He warns her about the loose doorknob on her hotel room door.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

And he goes back to his bedroom.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

They have some drinks. He and Celestial. Do they kind of reconcile a little bit. She reveals that her family isn't perfect either. Her mother was her father's mistress. He was still married when they got together. No one knows this. So they kind of reconcile a little bit. They lay down in bed together. And then I think this is from Celestial's perspective. The cops burst in and arrest Roy because the old lady was attacked by someone who came into her room. And she pegs Roy for it. The guy who helped her with ice. Man.

[Andrew]

Come on.

[Craig]

And he helped you with ice. She. She sees. In her mind. I think she sees it as him, like, kind of casing the joint. That he came back to her apartment, to her motel room to help her.

[Andrew]

Why would he. Why would he tell you about the loose sword? Fine. Sure.

[Craig]

Doesn't matter. Fine. Great. It's a zake.

[Andrew]

I. I know that the inciting event is unjust is part of the point of the book. So I'm not gonna. Like.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

That I am mad is not illuminating or interesting commentary. But it is what the book wants me to.

[Craig]

It is infuriate.

[Andrew]

So, like, here we are. Yeah.

[Craig]

There is. I. I clocked this in the moment, and then I was confirmed by the, like, book club group questions at the back of the novel. The. The older woman's race is never specified. You can envision versions of this book where it is. And it's, like, much more about a white woman accusing this younger black man of something or that it is an older black woman. And then, like, that. That also represents something. I think Jones was just like. That doesn't matter. It does not matter. It is that he was accused for something he didn't do. And then the system takes over from there.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

If this, like, this woman does not become a character in the novel moving forward.

[Andrew]

The old. The ice lady.

[Craig]

No, it does not become. We get, like, one scene of the. Of the trial where it's basically over before it starts. Yeah. Celestial. We get a little.

[Andrew]

Does he, like. Does he take a plea deal? Or is there an actual trial? Or how does it happen?

[Craig]

There's an actual trial by jury. And the. The Version of it that Jones decides to share with us is mostly from Celestial's perspective as a. As feeling like she failed him in the courtroom.

[Andrew]

Yeah, so I asked. I asked you that question. I already knew. I already knew.

[Craig]

Well, because this is in that Paris Review interview, I think. Right.

[Andrew]

I was just talking about the. And this gets back to the. You know, the. The what the reaction from her readers was like when the book was just about Celestial and what's expected of her as, like, as a woman, as a black woman. And this is Jones saying, you know, the bind that Celestials in. Basically, quote, she's to be well spoken and articulate, but that is inherently distancing because there's a reserve in that articulate, well spokenness. But at the same time, were she not to be articulate, then she would be seen as a stereotype and not credible in that way. So could she actually have saved him with her testimony? I don't know. I know she blames herself, but I don't know that she could have saved him. Yeah. And then the rest of the rest of the quote I have is just more stuff about audience expectations, like wanting to write. She says, it was really important to me to have Roy be a likable character. I feel like a lot of times in novels, particularly by black women, that. That interrogate the idea of marriage. Part of the way they give their heroines the right to be free is to make the husband a bad guy. So it has the feel of, save yourself from this man. You deserve more than this bad man. I'm thinking of the Color Purple. But what if the man is good? Do you have a right to your own life only because the man has somehow disqualified himself? Or is your life your own just because it's yours, even if he's nice, even if he's cool?

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

I assume we'll get more into that dynamic as we get more into, like, Roy's incarceration and their time apart. But yeah, just. Just she. She is. She is messing with a lot of things in this. In this passage and with these characters.

[Craig]

Yes. And I also, like. I really liked hearing her explanation of the scene a bit like this and was also still impressed with it in the novel because she. She uses man. It's such like, she uses the. The argument to tell you about Roy's parentage and to tell you about Celestial's parentage, both of which will be important for the rest of the novel. Like, it is a. It is one of the things I think, hovering over these two characters as a young Black couple. And Roy has, like. He refers to this as, like, 2.0 sometimes. Is. Are we going to. If we have a kid, are we going to raise them and constantly be talking to them about Jim Crow, about where their. What their grandparents dealt with, or are we in a new era where we can. We don't have to talk about that. We don't have to make them, you know, drive home a level of gratitude for everything and we can just, like, let them in, like, believe that the world started better than they. Than we found it. Right.

[Andrew]

Is. Is the book meant to take place, like, mostly contemporaneously? Like, do we have a sense of what is it important, what year it is?

[Craig]

I think it's incredibly contemporary. There's nothing that jumped out at me that sets it further in the back. There is, like, a few references, but.

[Andrew]

Yeah. The black experience in America is such that, like, depending on what decade you're writing it in, like, you're automatically kind of doing a period piece. Yes, in a way. So I could see, like, being vague about it to just be like, assume everything is pretty much the world that you. As you know it, and proceed from there. So. Okay.

[Craig]

And so I did this kind of thing from Roy about what understanding of the world do we want to give our kid? It's just an interesting question. And the background that we get on the parents is great for that scene. And then it is also great because it informs what Celestial thinks about herself in the courtroom. She specifically describes it as, like, she's. She's talking about the fact that Roy was with her in the motel room when this crime was committed, and yet she is admitting that they had a fight. And then the prosecutor, whoever is like, well, what was the fight about? And because it involves, like, unkept, like, not untold secrets about both of their families, she chooses to say nothing but pauses before doing so. And in her mind, that's where it fell apart. Like.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And I could see being. You could. You could so easily convince yourself in any situation.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

That it was. If you're on the stand at all, then not only could you have caused it with any pause, but, like, if you'd only been able to find the right words to say, you could have gotten the outcome that you wanted. Yeah.

[Craig]

And the kind of regret she shares the. Like, if they could have seen the art I made that was inspired by him, maybe that would have convinced them that I love him and believe in him. But I'm not that person that could communicate that with words. And I was not the person in that moment. So he is sentenced to 12 years in jail for this crime that he did not commit and is led away. And then we get a really long. And I had no idea this was in the book. A really long letter writing epistolary sequence.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Which is kind of fascinating, the way that she does it. They remark a. I like that both of them remark on the fact that they are not used to writing letters. I don't know about you, Andrew. I've been married for almost a decade now. I. I am thinking about the longest messages I've ever, like, sent Laura. And they do not equal the letters that are written in. Like, we are not.

[Andrew]

No.

[Craig]

We did not email each other as we were, you know, starting to date.

[Andrew]

Susan. I got to know each other over AIM primarily, which is like chatting.

[Craig]

Laura and I did a lot of Google chat. Yeah. But it was not like, oh, I'm going to write a letter, send it off into the world to your beloved.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

And, like, wonder what's happening while it travels to you. Like, yeah. It is just an interesting shift for the two of them that is happening at the same time. That is like, oh, no, you're in jail. Also.

[Andrew]

I think the equivalent is, like, I wrote you this message when you're away, and I'm not sure what's going to happen when. When you get up and see it and respond to me.

[Craig]

Yeah. And so it also gives you this, like, interesting version of. Neither of them have complete information about the other person's experience. Like, just literally, like, he obviously can't know what is happening outside of the prison and she can't know what's happening on the inside, except what they each tell each other. So you, the reader, don't get access to that either. You only get it in these letters back and forth. It's a really cool device. She also does not do any time stamps or dates for any of the letters.

[Andrew]

Mm.

[Craig]

I think over the.

[Andrew]

So you're just not sure at any point how much time has elapsed you.

[Craig]

You don't know that when any letter begins. And so it allows her to reveal information inside of a letter in a way that gives the reader, like, a little gut punch or a little, like, aha. Or there's just a good dramatic effect that she's able to achieve by, like. Like, I think what the other. The Jennifer Egan Candy House book I read, I think that had that long email sequence in it and that 50.

[Andrew]

Shades has along has. Has a bunch of emailing in it as well.

[Craig]

Does that have like dates and timestamps on the emails.

[Andrew]

It has subject lines. I think it has dates and timestamps. Yeah.

[Craig]

So like, that's some. Then that's something that the reader can be following. And what. Yeah, Jones has decided is that she wants it to be slipperier than that. She wants you to not really know how much time has passed until you're reading the letter and you kind of find out. So a lot of, like, really interesting things happen because of that. Where you get to hear about his new cell, cellmate, Walter, who is this like, older guy in jail. Everybody calls him Ghetto Yoda because he's always like, talking and, like, philosophical terms about things. He's a womanizer and, you know, has enlisted Roy to help him write letters to women in personal ads.

[Andrew]

But complicated person he is.

[Craig]

Wow, that was quick. Good work.

[Andrew]

Thank you.

[Craig]

And they have a visit together, which you know about because of the letters before and after. And you find out in these letters that they conceived a kid in the motel and she did not keep it. And they have a long kind of fight about what. That. How that went down, what the choice was like.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

You learn a bit more about her background at Spelman and what happened to her while she was there and how she even. And kind of found her way to this doll making art as she got out of a similar situation when she was younger. And then all of a sudden it's been two years and you're like, what's going on?

[Andrew]

So how do you know it's been two years?

[Craig]

It's like he mentions it at the top of a letter. Like, this is kind of how she drops it in. You were just.

[Andrew]

You just talking about how there's no time stamps or nothing.

[Craig]

Yes. And she. Jones does this where she will, like, have the. The characters organically remark on time or on passage.

[Andrew]

But you'd be like, I can't. I can't believe I've upgraded my iPhone two times since the last. Since the last letter.

[Craig]

You're right. That's exactly how she does it. Yep.

[Andrew]

I'm just again thinking about 50 Shades in the iPad. This is apparently this person's first, like, email capable device she's ever.

[Craig]

And the. The abortion story and then the next story that's a few years later, where Celestial has, like, embarked on her doll business as well as her artistic career. Both of them. Jones is doing everything she can to have both characters feel like they are in the right and in the wrong, like, all the time. Yeah, I can, as I'm reading it, even still see how people would come out of this book being like. Like, Celestial's a little selfish.

[Andrew]

Like, yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

And I don't. I don't know what to do with that other than, like, that you could even balance it any further than Jones already has, because she's done a lot of work to that end. And I think she wants you to be like, yeah, it's okay if she's selfish. It's okay if he's selfish. This is what would happen to people in this situation. They would act selfishly because they. Their whole lives would be uprooted and they would want whatever would make them feel better.

[Andrew]

Well, I don't. I don't have this. This is one where I don't have the quote for. But it is. It did just come up in the. The interviews I was reading. But she. She says basically of. Of Celestial and Roy. Like, Roy, being true to Celestial costs him nothing and gives him kind of a focal point that he can. That he can use to sort of ground. Ground himself and give himself something to. Something to look forward to, something to live for. Like, whatever motivating factor it is that he needs. Like, Celestial, the idea of her out there can be that way for him.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

And her being on the outside being true to him, like, that comes at a huge cost to her as a. As a woman in her late 20s. Like, maybe she does want to have a kid eventually. Like, what is she supposed to do with. To do with that? It's.

[Craig]

It's.

[Andrew]

It's much harder for her to be quote, unquote, true than it is for him because he's kind of got no option. And she is just. She is just out in. Out in the world as though. And, like, nobody knows the background that she's dealing with. You know, nobody knows that she's got this stuff in her past. And there's just, like, not a lot to be. It's from her perspective, you know, what is to be gained by being true to this person? And he's going to come out and they're still going to have kind of an iffy relationship, and it's going to be 12 or how many years later. Like, what are they supposed to do with that? Like, it's a. It's a big. There's a big, like, opportunity cost to her for doing what the reader wants.

[Craig]

Her to do, you know, And. And Jones is putting in the work to make sure you like Roy. So you also, like, you. You want to care about her and want her to be true to herself, but you Also, like, don't want Roy to lose whatever's keeping him human.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like, she's just doing a really good job of balancing that. And what you just said, Andrew, reminds me of the next fight that they have, which is that she, you know, she's getting her business going. She also is moving forward with her art. There's an email from. Not an email. There's a letter from Roy that is literally just. My mother says, you're famous. Confirm or deny. And it's clear he is super upset about something. And she has gotten, like, this art show she's gotten. One of her dolls has been, like, placed in the National Portrait Gallery. And she's gonna, like, explain that obviously much of her art is based on him and this, like, you know, as I said, this marble and everything. But the other thing is, she made this doll, baby doll of him that she was gonna give to Roy's mom, and she just couldn't bear to part with it because she's. She says she's a perfectionist. Also, she's probably emotionally attached to it. As she's walking down the street one day, she has kind of a panic attack because she sees a little boy that reminds her of Roy and thinks in her.

[Andrew]

Has, like, a Roy boy.

[Craig]

Yes, a Roy boy. And has kind of a lightning bolt moment of, like, thinking about that boy being in prison and reminds her of something that happened to her mom when her mom was a kid. And so she decides to take this doll that she was supposed to give to Roy's mom and turn it into an art piece by putting this little baby into, like, a prison jumpsuit. And then it becomes this, like, politically charged work of art that gets her a profile in Ebony magazine. And in all of the coverage, she does not mention Roy at all. She does not mention that she has a husband in prison, that he is incarcerated for this. You know, to me, it seems interesting that there's maybe not, like, you could imagine a reporter maybe doing some digging and finding this out, though.

[Andrew]

Yeah, you could imagine a reporter doing some digging, finding it out. And you can also imagine a lot of models.

[Craig]

Absolutely.

[Andrew]

Absolutely not doing that.

[Craig]

That's a fair point.

[Andrew]

Doing the. The legwork should figure that out.

[Craig]

So he, of course, is upset that it feels like she's ashamed of him. And her response is that she wanted to have her moment to be an artist, not a prisoner's wife.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

She also, like, is telling him that the story is too personal to her. Like, she didn't feel right sharing his story. And he writes back that one feels.

[Andrew]

More excuse y than. Than the first one to me. But, you know, you sang what you need in the book. Yeah.

[Craig]

And he writes back after with an apology after talking to ghetto Yoda, and she does not respond. He ultimately writes to her dad and is like, can you talk to her for me? And he's like, yeah, but I'm also going to tell her that you asked me to because she's my daughter. And he writes her again to reveal that this guy Walter is his long lost dad that he didn't know. So now he has kind of like an interesting father figure on the inside. That's like a whole thing. His mom has now gotten cancer and is dying. And he writes Celestial to say that he needs her to like, like, just like, really needs her, both emotionally and to look after his mom. And the next letter we get is a Dear John letter from Celestial saying that quote, what we have here isn't a marriage. A marriage is more than your heart. It's your life, and we are not sharing ours. And it is gut wrenching.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And I say, ugh. Not to be like, oh, Celestials, really?

[Craig]

No, it's just bad. It's happening.

[Andrew]

It's just like, man, this, like, it is completely understandable that this is what she would do. And, like, she is the only one that he has outside to try and exercise any kind of agency in the world with. So, yeah, like, of course it's bad for him.

[Craig]

All bad. It sucks. And then he is. He cuts her off and she's trying to reach him with no avail. You learn that his mom passes away, and then you hear a little bit from his lawyer who is her uncle, who has been working on the case and feels bad about it and wants to move, like, as soon as they can get it into the federal district system. He's pretty confident that they'll win their appeal, but unfortunately that takes time and we just need to hold on. And after five years, they vacate his conviction and he is coming home. Smash cut to part two of the book and you finally get a POV chapter from Andre, who has basically loved Celestial his entire life. And yes, they are now, like, sort of together. And they have four weeks to figure out what they're gonna tell Roy now that he's coming home for Christmas. Oh, whoops.

[Andrew]

I just like, I know this don't. This doesn't solve everything. I just feel like getting a wrongful conviction thrown out. Like, they should give you. They should. You know the scene in the movie where they give the. The person like, their. Their stuff back that they came in with. I feel like they should. Yeah, they should put all that stuff in the little tray, and then they should just give you a bunch of big burlap sacks with dollar signs.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And it's like, it doesn't. It doesn't fix anything, but I feel like there should be some.

[Craig]

And they should mail a bunch more to everyone in your family. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Andrew]

Sucks so bad just to be like, well, sorry, we goofed this one.

[Craig]

We goofed this one.

[Andrew]

You're free to go, I guess.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. And so then the rest of this book, and I think that at this point, I could leave people to say, I liked this book. You should probably go read it.

[Andrew]

It should be a movie, but you still liked it.

[Craig]

I.

[Andrew]

Your face is not being picked up by the mic is the thing.

[Craig]

I'm so sorry. The face that you made.

[Andrew]

I can. I can see the face that you made, but they can't hear the face that you made when I said that.

[Craig]

Yeah, I know.

[Andrew]

And just like the. The combination of. Not only are you annoyed with me, but you are disappointed in yourself for having given me this rope to hang.

[Craig]

Disappointed in myself. Oh, boy. I will say, over the course of this novel, Andre does not look great. He has clearly loved Celestial his whole life. And he even says to the reader, like, anybody better than me would not. The. The second that this happened, would have done everything he could to abandon all the feelings possible.

[Andrew]

He's just an early 2000s rom com guy. He's like, if I just hang around long enough, she'll like me eventually.

[Craig]

There's a scene later with his estranged dad, who he goes. Or Andres, Andre's estranged dad, where he. He goes to him and is like, well, I. I don't. He's like, I don't really like you, but I'm going down to Louisiana to talk to my husband's. To my wife's. Well, yeah, he's like, proposed. It's very confusing.

[Andrew]

My girlfriend, my. My fiance's.

[Craig]

Yeah. Because he has proposed to her.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

It's a whole. There's a really, like, drastic Thanksgiving scene that happens where they say that they're gonna get married even though she's not divorced. He's gonna go down Louisiana, talk to Roy, and he stops with his dad, and his dad's like, this guy's gonna beat you up. Like, and you need to be ready for that. Like, what you need to do is you need to tell him honestly what you're doing because he. He. You owe him that at the very least, like, and you're probably gonna get beat up or something is going to happen, and you probably deserve that, too. And then you can find out if happiness is on the other side. But, like, if this is what you want. And you're like, I don't. Andre's dad. What I don't know about you, he's, like, a really weird character.

[Andrew]

I don't think it's bad advice, though.

[Craig]

No, it's not. It's pretty good advice, actually.

[Andrew]

It's realistic. At a bare minimum, it's realistic advice.

[Craig]

Yep. You get some scenes with Roy's dad, Big Roy, who plays a good. He punks Andre at one point when, like, Andre calls, like, roy, I'm gonna come, like, get you and bring you to Atlanta to come see Celestial. And Roy's like, I'm not gonna do that. I'm gonna drive there instead. And. But he doesn't tell Andre that. So, like, Andre wastes the drive down while Roy is driving, and Big Roy keeps Andre in his house and is like, no, sorry, the phone doesn't work. And then an hour later, the phone rings, and Andre's like, you lied to me. I didn't think you were a person who lied. And the exact quote is something like, I didn't feel bad about lying to you until you believed it. Laughed out loud while I was reading this book. I love Big Roy so much.

[Andrew]

That's really funny.

[Craig]

And so you get some, like, stories from Roy about his time in prison. This, like, really horrific. He tells us to a few people throughout the book. There's, like, really horrific thing inspired by a story that Jones had read about, like, prisoners just wanting fruit, just wanting, like, fresh fruit that tastes good. And he, like, sells a. He sells a garbage bag to get a pearl. And then a guy uses that garbage bag to end his own life. And, like, Roy is haunted by it.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And so he, like, before he goes to see Celestial in Atlanta, he does have a little tryst with a woman named Davina.

[Andrew]

And.

[Craig]

They do sleep together. And there is a thing that happens between them. And the kind of ending of the book is, like, how will this, like, kind of love triangle sort itself out with Andre, Roy, and Celestial? And how does Roy have this other person that he can. That he can be with? And you get some other, like, vignettes about the parents and the way that they have and have not loved each other and what types of marriages they represent. There's a very dramatic fight scene at the end of the novel where Roy has kind of Lost it and doesn't really know what to do. And then ultimately it boils down to Roy and Celestial in a way that I really like. It feels very, like, well made play. Very like he is trying to confess to Celestial about his time with Davina to see if it actually gets the emotional response from her that it would have gotten, you know, five years ago. And she has shifted into a mode of, like, feeling so guilty for what she is doing that she's maybe will stand by Roy but will be incredibly unhappy about it. And she cannot be moved to get angry at him. Him. She's, like, trying to be too understanding.

[Andrew]

And he, yeah, like, yeah, like, I, I, I will take anything from you because I'm just feeling so guilty about what I've done that I'm looking to, like, balance that, that ledge.

[Craig]

And in that, in that moment, he knows that there is nothing or like there's not something there anymore.

[Andrew]

Yeah, like he, and whatever she could tell him, like, he could never believe that it was truly what she wanted.

[Craig]

Yes, yes. And that's, yeah, the fact that she.

[Andrew]

That'S the death of a thing by.

[Craig]

His confession is what convinces him, like, oh, no, she needs to, she needs to go. Like, it would be better for her. And so you get that ending and then you get a little epilogue of where the characters wind up and you get the sense that they each get half of what they've wanted kind of as partners in their new relationships. I think I found a Reddit thread pretty quickly as I was Google, I was trying to Google, like, about the dolls, and there was a Reddit thread where people were just like, yelling about all these characters in a way that I think is an endorsement of the book. Even though they might think that they're kind of frustrated with these characters in a way that makes them think they don't like the book, but actually they really do. Okay. And it's like everyone is content but a little bit unhappy.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Or at least, you know, at least a little bit, maybe more. But they've all found a version of contentment that might last them for the rest of their lives. Who knows? And yeah, it's just a, it's just an interesting book. It does not, as I said, it does not belabor the courtroom stuff. It does not really give you, gives you very, very select snippets of prison life kind of on purpose. And it gives you this, like, portrait of two young people from the south when you finally get their backstory, meeting each other. I think it's Celestial's Perspective where she says something like, I don't know if I would have fallen as hard into this relationship if I weren't. If we both weren't, like, homesick, if we both weren't out of our element and we had found somebody from where we came from, and that created a connection, and that set us on this path, and then it was derailed. So it's just. I don't know. It's an interesting book. Who am I to argue with Obama and Oprah?

[Andrew]

Who are you to argue with them?

[Craig]

Actually, I have my quibbles with both of them. Let me go on the record and say that.

[Andrew]

That's a great point. That's a. That's a fantastic point. And listen, many lesser white men than you have decided to pick fights with Barack Obama.

[Craig]

Let's just remember that I'm not here to fight him. I just have some notes physically about, you know, foreign policy and. But no, I can see why the book resonated with people. I can see why the book may have infuriated people. Like, I do think that Celestial can be a harder character to root for. Perhaps because Jones wanted to make sure we didn't. She never wanted us to really root against Roy, though. There's, like, a scene or two at the end where Roy is more violent than he ever was as a person, which he chalks up to his, you.

[Andrew]

Know, his time ever was as a per.

[Craig]

Prior to being imprisoned.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

Like. And none of it's irrevocable, but it is a little scary for, you know, folks involved. And I know that has also been a turning point for some people on this book. So, like, that's. She's playing with interesting stuff here, and I think she does a good job of leaning away from tropes wherever she can.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

So any other questions about American marriage? Andrew, you got any. Any marriage tips for the people out there?

[Andrew]

I don't. I want to be. I don't want to be culpable for any.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

I'm gonna be on the hook for any. Any marriage advice that I try to give anyone, so. So, no, I'm set, I think.

[Craig]

Sounds good. Thank you for being honest with me.

[Andrew]

Thank you for being honest about how you felt about this book.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

And the.

[Craig]

I think people should read it.

[Andrew]

The medium that it was. That it was published in.

[Craig]

Remains to be seen. What it'll be like if it's a movie. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe it should have been a TV show. Maybe. But maybe more people will talk about it, and then we'll Find out. So refer your friends to this book, An American Marriage by Tayari Jones. It's pretty good. I think you should read it. If folks at home have lists.

[Andrew]

Oprah, Obama and Craig.

[Craig]

And now you at home, the Mount.

[Andrew]

Rushmore of book recommenders.

[Craig]

Send us an email about this book or other books if you have opinions about them. Overdupodmail.com find us on social media. Overdue pod our theme music is composed by Nick Lauranges. Andrew. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Andrew]

Overdue podcast.com is the old Internet website. Up there we have the recent episodes that we've published. We have the schedule for the months to come. I will let Craig read you our December schedule here in just a minute. We also have a little web player you can use to play the episodes. It's just there for your convenience. You can also find it at, of course, in any podcaster that you like to use. Patreon.com overduepod is our Patreon page. You can support the show directly, financially using that page and get fun little goodies in response from us. Like access. I bit my tongue. Like access to our Discord community. And bonus episodes, including our recent long read project, the Silly Marillion about J.R.R. tolkien's Silmarillion. It's gonna be wrapping up real soon.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

But you can get early access to [e-mail] overdupod also add free episodes, our newsletter, a few other things.

[Craig]

Come join us.

[Andrew]

What are we doing? Yeah, come join us. Craig, what are we doing in December?

[Craig]

Kicking it off with Still Life by Louise Penny. I am told that this is a Chief Inspector Gamache mystery.

[Andrew]

I'm enjoying this one already.

[Craig]

Great. Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald. And then we have a holiday extravaganza, Kidnapped by the Krampus by Emily Shore. Andrew and I set ourselves calendar reminders for this book because we had the.

[Andrew]

Idea last year, but it was like by the time we found it, we didn't have enough time to read the whole thing. Yeah, so we did have a calorie calendar reminder that said stupid sexy Krampus in our calendars for like a year.

[Craig]

And now here we are, we're closing out December and closing out 2025 with American Girl books. Meet Samantha by Susan S. Adler and Meet Addie by Connie Rose Porter.

[Andrew]

It's exciting. Yeah, I think every, every, like every 30 or 40 year old woman out there is real psyched for us to read these books.

[Craig]

No I think it'll be fun. So tune in, read along with us if you choose. We'll also we'll have a bonus stream at some point this month that we have some fun plans for. And sure do you if Andrew didn't mention it, we we are still posting Sit Me Baby One More Time Babysitter Club episodes monthly on the main feed now that we are still in silmarillion. So I think we just did dawn and the Impossible 3. Go give that a listen and that's it.

[Andrew]

All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. And until we talk to you next time, please try to be happy. That was a Hitgum podcast.

[Lamorne Morris]

What's going on? It's Lamorne Morris and Hannah Simone and we host the Mess Around a New Girl Rewatch podcast now on Headgum. Now here's the thing. Every single week, we chat about an episode of New and we really get into it. Like we get up in there. We get up in there. You know, we reminisce about our times on set. We share behind the scenes tea. We react to rewatching episodes that we haven't seen in years. We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog.

[Andrew]

That's not true. We talk about so many memories we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet. I'm talking Prince, Taylor Swift, Elizabeth, Olivia, Rodrigo.

[Lamorne Morris]

We're just two BFFs having a good old time.

[Craig]

Okay?

[Lamorne Morris]

Sometimes we even talk to other co stars like Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Waynes Jr. And your dad. We talked to your dad on this show as well.

[Andrew]

Make sure you subscribe to the Mess around wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes drop every single Tuesday.