PART ONE FELT like an update of If Beale Street Could Talk--an African American couple separated due to the husband's wrongful incarceration. As in Baldwin's novel, there is a pregnancy (but terminated in this case), one of the couple is an artist (the woman in this case), and the narrative energy goes mainly into what is strained and what is enduring in their relationship, with due attention to their families.
Curveball coming up in Part Two, though. The woman, Celestial, falls in love with an old (but hitherto non-romantic) friend, Andre. Then, to everyone's surprise, efforts to overturn husband Roy's wrongful conviction succeed, and he is coming home, hoping to resume his rightful place, etc.
Jones changes the point of view from chapter to chapter, circulating among first-person narratives by Celestial, Roy, and Andre. This keeps things interesting, and her style is brilliant throughout, but things get unavoidably soapy once the triangular situation dominates.
Turns out Celestial and Roy were married in a fever hotter than a pepper sprout, as in the old Johnny-and-June duet, but the fire has now gone out, as least for Celestial. But does she not owe poor Roy something? "In a way," Andre muses, "the whole black race was loyal to Roy, a man just down from the cross." Celestial resolves to go back to Roy out of duty. Roy, to his credit, decides he does not want the relationship on those terms, and gracefully gives way. Luckily, he too has someone from back in the day in his old hometown who is eager to heat things up again. So everyone is going to be all right, it appears.
What is American about this marriage, exactly? It's screenplay-ready, for one thing, and what is more American than that?
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