Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones, novelist known for An American Marriage, discusses her new novel Kin and how personal loss and illness shaped it. She explores female friendship, writing through grief, researching the Jim Crow South, and the power of letters and childhood perspective. Jones also reflects on growing up with activist parents and the writers and teachers who made her a writer.

Tayari Jones is the author of four novels. She won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus. Her novel An American Marriage was an Oprah's Book Club Selection, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. She won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Fiction. An American Marriage tells the story of Celestial and Roy, a Black middle-class couple living in Atlanta. Their lives are torn apart after Roy is wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit, and the middle of the book takes the form of letters they send each other while he’s in prison. In her discussion with Susan, Tayari discusses the letter Celestial sends to Roy to tell him she is leaving him. For more, visit bookexploder.com/episodes/tayari-jones.

Tayari Jones, novelist and Emory creative writing professor, discusses her novel Kin and its portraits of Black life. She explores motherless upbringing, surrogate caregivers, Jim Crow small-town realities, class and HBCU dynamics, humor amid hardship, queer relationships, reproductive risk, and the power of letters to hold long-distance bonds.

Tayari Jones, novelist of Kin and An American Marriage, talks about the 1950s origins of Kin and the personal history behind her characters. Delroy Lindo, veteran actor with a fifty-year career and an Oscar-nominated turn in Sinners, discusses preparing Delta Slim, blues research, and his family and memoir work. They explore performance, memory, and how personal pasts shape storytelling.

Tayari Jones, acclaimed novelist and professor behind An American Marriage and Kin, joins to discuss friendship, motherlessness, and chosen family. She talks about using letters as storytelling, midcentury settings, mentors who shaped her, and the eight-year gap between books. The conversation highlights craft moments like word doodling, title choices, and finishing the novel.