An American Marriage

It is the Labor Day weekend, and Roy and Celestial Hamilton drive from Atlanta (where the couple lives) to Eloe (a rural town in Louisiana) to visit Roy’s parents, Big Roy and Olive. Roy narrates the opening chapter. The couple have been married for eighteen months. They met when they both attended Atlanta’s Morehouse College, introduced at a student mixer by a mutual friend, Dre Tucker. Roy, now a textbook sales rep, makes a comfortable living. Celestial creates one-of-a-kind dolls—she has already been profiled in a magazine as one of Atlanta’s up and coming artists.

For Roy, his wife is “the perfect balance in a woman, not a button-down corporate type, but she wore her pedigree like a gloss on a patent-leather shoe” (8). Roy, who had a humble upbringing with just enough resources to get by, is aware of his in-laws’ wealth—Celestial’s mother is a school district assistant superintendent, and her father is a retired high school chemist who discovered a formula that keeps orange juice fresher, which made him a fortune. The couple moved into Celestial’s childhood home (the parents, suddenly millionaires, deeded the house to them and relocated to a grand Victorian showplace). Roy is proud that he completed college, left home, and is now poised for long-term career success.