Here, listening to book explode her where others breakdown of passage from their work to shows how they re I'm russification your way and I'm susan orlean in this episode. Susan speaks to terry jones, who won the women. prize for fiction for her novel and american marriage. She also want me and doubly cp image award for outstanding literary work and in america marriage was a selection for operas book club susan. How did you and a picking this book I was very attracted to title as an american who is married, I loved the planes spokenness of the title, which I do think ends up being a very important part of the book,

simply stating that this is an american marriage. Even though, as you read in the book, it may not fit your idea of what a conventional american marriage ends up looking like and that's a lot of what I think, she's pushing us toward acknowledging and recognizing. Yet the specific american marriage in the book is that of celestial and roy, who are a black middle class couple living in atlanta and then their lives get torn apart when Roy is wrongfully convicted of a crime he didn't commit in the two of you discuss a passage where celestial tells Roy that she's leaving him while he's still incarcerated it's in the form of a letter, which is always a really challenging way to ride, and I think that terry does it magnificently hear susan's interview with terry jones, hello, hey, hey my

first question for you is: how did you choose this passage to be the one that we were gonna kind of examine closely? What is this passage mean to you ass? It was one of the hardest part to write in the book, because I had never written a book where I had so much push back in terms of my idea of a just like in real life. As a woman, you can often get alot of push back by the way that you accept. The the plot of your own life for less celestial is fighting for the right to have a complex reaction who the situation with her husband with the situation with her husband. it's not complex. He was arrested for a crime, he didn't commit, that's wrong and there is really no nuance there. Like that's a terrible thing that happened, but her response is nuanced and a whole mess, The book are the letters they exchange for even present, and so this is

The letter she right when she says she can't be his wife dear why this is a letter I promised I would never send before I go any further. I want to tell that I am sorry I want to tell you that even typing. These words is killing me. I won't say that this will hurt me more than it hurts you, because I know how much you're hurting every day and no matter what this happening to me. It will never compare, the understand that I'm not in the same agony as you are, but I'm in pain, and I cannot continue to live this way way. The pressure that I experienced writing this novel was how to make all the characteristics Derek. How could we make celestial said even though she is defying our expectations of the honour of this type of story. Right, if you say you have it

I look at a woman and her husband has been wrongfully accused. Everyone expects the novel to be one woman's brave fight to free her man right, and so this moment in the book is when she defies expectations, and it is really the most commercial, and so I chose it because I revise this dear john butter. I thought when I was writing destined celestial and me were in the same place. We were working so hard to be heard under third and hopefully overweight, the wrath of being a woman who defies expectation and, though she's fighting for her right avenue want life life. While I was fighting for the right to have written a on novel, that's really interesting, and because this isn't a simple right and wrong. This is about the complexity of every decision. Did you write the book in its chronological order? The way it appears in the book

or did you write sections separately you, I actually road, an american marriage from beginning to end from the router to the tudor from celestial point of view, for, though All the roy chapters never existed when I'm starting out loud as a huge change. It was a mass every vision that was, brought about when I heard quartier ring him, give a reading and she said what happened to you doesn't belong to you. Does it only concern you? It's not yours, not yours, only or something like that, and I realise that everybody in this story needed to have tat. So I wrote the both from the router to tutor from royce perspective, and then I'm merge those two and then I added a third perspective at this book me six years to right, because I wrote it two and a half kind o tell me more about that. Writing this particular section. Was it multiple drafts, multiple, multiple malta,

we'll trap and it's funny, because when I was writing the multiple draft I felt ass though I were celestial peory, the writer wrote multiple drab, but selection. Character also wrote multiple draft it that makes it oh makes perfect sense. You were experiencing it as if celestial were writing this and crossing it. I starting again because she was gone

in the tone right and you were getting the tone right for her right. I love that. It's like a russian nesting doll of intention. I feel like in many ways. This is a book where a boulder falls from the sky and crashes into this life, and then people have to adjust to the boulder that crashed out of the sky yeah. Then a boulder is not a complicated thing, but the splinters that the boulder creates when crashing into the life are many different shapes. pfizer? Is the debris is what's complicated? What we have here isn't a marriage. A marriage is more than your heart, it's your life and we are not sharing hours. I blame it on time, not on you or me. If we put a any in the jar for every day we have been married and we took a penny away. Every day we ve been apart, the jar would have been depleted a long time ago.

How much is celestials voice your voice, our voices. Are very similar, which is part of the reason why it hurts my feelings. When people say they don't like her, she thinks, like I think, for example, she loves the defined terms like she says to him. You know marriage is more than your heart. It's your life, that's the kind of thing that I think about, and she and I have a lot of beliefs in common. One thing that really struck me is the counting of time, though, A! U count age of a baby. I can't go on being your wife in some ways I feel like. I never even got to try my hand at that role. we're only married a year and a half before lightning struck counting off time. In months, like you do with the baby, I have done my best to be married without actually being a wife for three years

now. Do you remember writing that particular image? I do I needed to underscore the brevity of this marriage. When I wrote the first draft, they had actually been married for years, but then I decided they should be married only eighteen months really to give more ambiguity to the kinds of choices they had to make. I kept saying: okay did a mere eighteen months have been married eighteen months, and then I just occurred to me that only time you use terms like eighteen months and when you're talking about a baby, you count babies by months all the way until they're two, I say nineteen months twenty months, then once they turn to you start counting them off in years, and I thought that's exactly what this marriage is. This marriage is in, it's infancy is on the edge of it's infancy, but it's still in infancy, we'll be right back with more. After this.

One thing that was really important in the passage is how celestial signs off, which is love, I have a celestial. So how many times did you draft that it's funny cause throughout the letters I use the way they sign off his show where the relationship is strong, where tweak to measure their different levels of commitment and when he says love there. I thought about it. I thought he's gonna roll his eyes at this and, if I know he's going to roll his eyes, her thing love She knows it, so I wanted to somehow underscore that employ tried in many ways like love all ways. with a literal underscore under ed, but I thought that was an voice enough love and I mean it celestial, oh yeah. That's it most

her previous letters she signs of yours, which Obviously, she's now saying I'm not yours anymore and yet she's emphasizing that she loves him because she wrote him a letter to say I love you, but I cannot be your wife, so she's separating those two things fight the role of wife and the emotion of love. She doesn't think that they are necessarily the same thing. How did you feel when you wrote the first draft of this and then ultimately, when did you know as you redrafted it so many times? How did you know you got it right? I felt incredibly guilty when I in writing. I feel guilty as she would feel guilty to do this to Roy. I fell back to injure roy, even though he and she their figures for my imagination that I hated to do it to him

I knew that. I had it right when I wrote the sentence where he said. I won't say that this will hurt me but then it hurts you because I know how much you're hurting every day and no matter what This happening to me, it will never compare. I like engaging with the cliche of this, hurts me more than it hurts you and she's interrogating that, nevertheless, the experience of writing. It was painful for her and she's claiming she's owning what she feels, while also acknowledging what he feels and one when I got that part of it. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Here it is. This is the tone I want when she says I will never abandon you. That filled me with tears,

Did you get teary when you were writing this? Oh, I got theory all these people. These people put me through. If I was peary with them all the way I was anxious, I was so stressed. These characters were the most demanding of any character I have ever written. I was having such a hard time because I was trying to make her more sympathetic, because you know there's all this pressure, particularly on women characters to be sympathetic. it can. I I started giving her problems, because maybe she had problems then it would. You know, love allowed, and I realize that the fact of roy's incarceration makes any other pleasure in the story kind of suspicious there's no problem she can have. That seems to matter and the faithful but rojas, going through, and once I realized that I stopped piling problem

on her and did you feel liberated or constrained by the format of writing? In letters, the letters were roy greatest gift to the less so and his greatest gift to me ass, his author, because the measures can only know a growth prison experience what he chooses to share in a letter he protect her from the harsh detail, therefore, protecting we and also protecting the reader in making his time in prison. He don't have handled the day to day reality. Monotony tat is what prison is all about reality and the money. The last three times I have visited, we said almost nothing to each other. You can't bear to hear about my days and I can't bear to hear about yours.

What was the initial impulse that led you to write this book? For my fourth novel, I decided that now is the time for me to stop endlessly excavating my autobiography and write about something that I thought could be useful to the world. I was interested in the way that incarceration affects the culture in which I live. The collateral effects, I'd never written a novel with a social problem in mind, and I was trying to write about problem and their people when a good now should be about people and their problems. So I had a problematic how many people I was doing all this, be harvard, I had all these, like angry marked up index cards, where I was outlining the gorge of math and carter,

mission, but I didn't have a story, but then I went home to atlanta and I was in the mall and when I was in the more I ran across a couple and they were arguing. She looked beautiful. She looked ban catholic built shoes, bag, everything and he looked ok, she look value and I heard her say Roy. You know you wouldn't awaited on me for seven years and she was right. Of course, she will not have waited on her seven years, and he didn't argue with that. He didn't say yes, I would have or how could you say that instead he said I dunno what you're talking about this wouldn't have happened to you in the first place, and I was intrigued because I thought he was entirely right, but I also thought

he was entirely right and when I have two people disagree but they're both right. I call that a novel and now here's Tyree jones reading this passage. From an american marriage. Dear Roy, this is a letter I promised I would never sand before I go any further. I want to tell you that I am sorry I want to tell you that even typing these words is killing me. I won't say that this will hurt me more than her to you, because I know how much you're hurting every day and no matter what this happening to me. They will never compare. I understand that I'm not in the same agony as you are, but I'm in pain, and I cannot continue to live this way. I can't go on being your wife. in some ways I feel like I've, never even got to try my hand at that role.

We're only married a year and a half before lightning struck, counting off time. In months, like you do with the baby, I have done my best to be married without actually being a wife for three years now, You're going to think that this is about another man, but this is about the two of us about our delicate cord, the husbands. traded by your incarceration at your mother's funeral. Your father's show but the connection is between husband and wife. If he could have, he would have gone in the grave instead of her, but they lived under one roof for more than thirty years: in some ways they grew together and grew up together and had she not died, they would have grown old together. That is what a marriage is. What we have here is it Marriage, a marriage, is more than your hard, it's your life and we are not sharing hours. I blame it on time, not on you or me. If we put

many in the jar for every day we have been married and we took a penny away. Every day we ve been apart, the jar would have been depleted a long time ago. I've been trying to find ways to add more, pennies but our visits and that busy room at that sad table send me home with empty hands. I know this and you, due to the last three times I have visited, we said almost nothing to each other. You can't bear to hear about my days and I can't bear to hear about yours. I am not abandoning you. I will never abandon you. My uncle will continue to file appeals. I will continue to keep your commissary up today and I'll visit you every month I can come as your friend s your ally as your sister, your part of my family roy and you always will be, but I can't be your wife love and I mean it celestial.

An american marriage, is available in hard cover paper back. An audio book. Terry's website is terry jones. You can visit ass at book, exploded, dot com for more information. This episode was produced by Theo, balcony, Julia voltaire, Susan and myself, or production assistant is very dawn. Natasha how she created the book. Exploded logo are episode. Our work is by polish jackson and I made the shows thematic book explore Is a proud member of radio tokyo from pierre rags and network of independent listener supported artist, I'm fine More radio, topeka dot family I'm education, Norway and I'm susan or lean thanks for listening

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