Roy and Celestial are young, middle-class, in love, and "on the come-up," as Roy likes to put it. But only 18 months into their marriage, Roy is sentenced to twelve years in prison—for a crime he didn't commit. Roy needs Celestial behind him if he is to survive. She needs to cut him loose if she is to do the same. In his letters, Roy writes, "I'm innocent." But Celestial tells him, "I'm innocent, too." If everyone is innocent, where does the fault lie? This is very much a book about mass incarceration—and it's no coincidence that Roy is arrested, tried, and imprisoned in Louisiana, the state with the highest per-capita rate of incarceration, with a 4:1 ratio of Black prisoners to white—but there's little talk of issues. Instead, this is a love story, though one gone horribly and irreversibly wrong. This is a book you'll need to discuss once you're finished: be prepared for a lively debate among your fellow readers.
