Overview

In the summer of 2020, social justice protests and the removal of Confederate monuments rock the city of Richmond, Virginia, as the marriages of two estranged sisters implode. When Cynthia's husband, Bobby, can no longer hide his dire financial situation, their union finally ruptures. Melissa, her sister, has dedicated herself so fully to racial justice activism that she becomes alienated from her own Black husband. As the summer heats up and their marriages veer in opposite directions, the sisters have no choice but to turn to one another. Meanwhile, their husbands conspire in a racial reckoning that their ancestors-one old Virginia White, the other old Virginia Black-would never have dreamed of. When secrets within marriage erode trust, all couples must decide what's more important: being true to who they are as individuals or holding on to an illusion of the past. Marriage and Other Monuments is a must-listen multigenerational drama set against a tumultuous time of racial tension in the South.

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Reviews

""Marriage and Other Monuments is a riveting contemporary narrative that intertwines suspenseful family drama, powerful themes of social justice, and a plot ripped soulfully from the headlines. Pye tells a story of race, marriage, and politics ideal for book club discussions and sure to satisfy readers of every stripe."" -- ""Bruce Holsinger, author of Culpability"" ""Fans of Ann Napolitano and Mary Beth Keane: Buy this novel immediately! An engrossing, timely family saga, Virginia Pye's Marriage and Other Monuments explores complicated truths about race and class-and love and desire-in the contemporary South, shining a brilliant light on the turmoil of 2020 through the lens of history."" -- ""Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year"" ""Superb. With startling command of craft, Virginia Pye delivers a novel in which small triumphs-of art and in life-become the abiding monuments, as love, and the failures of love, eclipse politics."" -- ""Alice Randall, author of Black Bottom Saints ""

Author Information

Virginia Pye is the author of four award-winning books of fiction, including two post-colonial historical novels set in China, River of Dust and Dreams of the Red Phoenix, and the short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness. Her last novel, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann is a love story to writers and readers set in Gilded Age Boston. Virginia's essays have appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Publishers Weekly, Writer's Digest, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and, most recently, at GrubStreet in Boston. Virginia is Fiction Editor of the literary journal Pangyrus. Aven Shore is an audiobook narrator who is in love with the magical alchemy of storytelling. A dual United States/Canada citizen, she has a passion for sustainable living; feminist, gender, and sexuality issues; cognitive science and productivity; and trauma/cult memoirs. She currently resides in an off-grid tiny house in rural Canada.

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