An American Marriage by Tayari Jones is akin to the threading of a quilt worn out not by time but by circumstances.

A passionately woven tale of stirring, deep, inseparable love. In the true Shakespearean style, an event as trivial as Roy helping an elderly lady take an ice bucket to her room completely upends the lives of the newlyweds – Roy and Celeste.

Jones weaves a moving pattern of Celeste’s visit to meet her husband in jail. These visits dwindle with time as Celeste finds success in her doll making business, the dolls ironically being fashioned after Roy’s face, and finding a tether in Andre, the best man at their wedding.

Written in an epistolary form, An American Marriage portrays quiet devastation of families. The lives of Roy and Celeste, their families’, and Andre’s are all affected by an allegation of rape, a crime Roy did not commit.

Time has a tendency to be erratic. For some, it ambles, while it gallops gaily for others … and in its unpredictable gait, it sure corrupts LOVE to follow suit.

How fate works: Roy meets his birth father in jail.