Boston Book Festival 2018

Tayari Jones first graced the BBF stage back in 2012 for her previous novel, Silver Sparrow. Since then, the continued ascent of her writing career has been nothing short of meteoric, and her 2018 novel An American Marriage has been a New York Times bestseller, an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and longlisted for the National Book Award in fiction. An American Marriage offers a stunningly intimate and emotionally raw portrait of a young couple in crisis. Young black couple Roy and Celestial have only been married a year when Roy is wrongfully accused of sexual assault and subsequently imprisoned. Jones examines how this catastrophe wreaks havoc with the dynamics of the couple’s nascent marriage, and the emotional stakes are unbelievably high as Celestial and Roy’s story plays out through shifting perspectives and generous, empathetic storytelling. An American Marriage touches on themes of friendship, love, trust, and, of course, the injustice that disrupts and destroys far too many real lives and love stories, particularly for people of color. We are honored to welcome Tayari Jones back to the BBF for this year’s fiction keynote session, during which she will be interviewed by Christopher Castellani, artistic director of GrubStreet and author of, among other works, the forthcoming novel Leading Men. Sponsored by BOOKFORUM.