Dear Great Book Guru,  April is coming to an end and I have lots of plans for the coming months.   High on my list is to read a worthwhile book every week.  I do love a good novel especially with contemporary overtones.  Any suggestions? 

A Resolute Reader

Dear Resolute Reader,  AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones is an excellent book to begin your regimen.  Celestial and Roy are a newly married African-American couple living the American Dream. He is the child of the Old South – he grew up in a small Louisiana town that he left the day he graduated from high school. Armed with his “first generation” scholarship to Morehouse College, Roy saw himself headed for success on all fronts. Celestial was a city girl from Atlanta with highly educated urbane parents. Together they see a future of unlimited potential until…. Roy is arrested and imprisoned for a crime they both know he did not commit.  The rest of the book recounts the damage done to them by a justice system weighed heavily against black men and their families.  Told partly in letters from  Roy and Celestial, the novel reveals the disbelief,  pain, and anger the couple  feel as they come to realize the empty promise for them of the American Dream.  Highly recommended!