Tayari Jones discusses An American Marriage, which won the Women's Prize for Fiction 2019. The novel tells the story of Roy and Celestial, a newly wed and successful African-American couple in Atlanta whose marriage is tested when the husband is imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit.

The book tackles the shadow cast by the judicial system over many African-American lives. Tayari tells Bookclub how the novel was inspired by an exchange she overheard between a man and a woman at a shopping mall. "The woman said - Roy, you wouldn't have waited on me for seven years. And he said, This wouldn't have happened to you in the first place."

Presented by James Naughtie and including questions from this month's group of readers.

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December's Bookclub Choice : Legend of a Suicide by David Vann (2009)

Presenter : James Naughtie