An American Marriage

by

Tayari Jones

Roy Hamilton Jr. Character Analysis

Roy Othaniel Hamilton Jr. is the husband of Celestial Davenport, the son of Olive, and the adopted son of Big Roy. Raised in the fictional rural town of Eloe, Louisiana, Roy attends Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia, where he develops a reputation as a ladies’ man. A promising marketing executive at the start of the novel, he has been married to Celestial for only a year and a half when he’s wrongfully accused of attacking a woman at a motel and sentenced to twelve years in prison. There, he discovers that his cellmate, Walter, is his biological father. Roy tries to maintain good spirits while incarcerated, though he finds himself feeling betrayed by his wife as she focuses more on her art career and eventually develops a relationship with his former college classmate, Andre. Roy emerges from prison a changed man, having experienced unspeakable hardship while incarcerated. Though he comes close to reuniting with Celestial, he ultimately realizes that their relationship has been irrevocably broken and instead returns to Eloe engaged to his former high school classmate Davina Hardrick.

Roy Hamilton Jr. Quotes in An American Marriage

The An American Marriage quotes below are all either spoken by Roy Hamilton Jr. or refer to Roy Hamilton Jr.. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Marriage in Crisis Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

But home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

Memory is a queer creature, an eccentric curator. I still look back on that night, although not as often as I once did. How long can you live with your face twisted over your shoulder? No matter what people may say, this was not a failure to remember. I’m not sure it is a failure at all.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Did we love so forcefully that night because we knew or because we didn’t? Was there an alarm from the future, a furious bell without its clapper? Did this hopeless bell manage to generate a breeze, causing me to reach to the floor to find my slip and use it to cover myself? Did some subtle warning cause Roy to turn and pin me to his side with his heavy arm?

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

But what is real? Was it our uneventful first impression? Or the day in New York, of all places, where we found each other once again? Or did things “get real” when we married, or was it the day that the prosecutor in a little nowhere town declared Roy to be a flight risk? The state declared that though he may have roots in Louisiana, his home was in Atlanta, so he was held without bond or bail. At this pronouncement, Roy spat out a caustic laugh. “So now roots are irrelevant?”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

Sleeping by myself didn’t kill me then and will not kill me now. But this is what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

Am I different? It has been close to three years, so I guess I have changed. Yesterday I sat under the hickory tree in the front yard. It’s the only place where I find rest and just feel fine. I know fine isn’t a lot, but it’s rare for me these days. Even when I’m happy, there is something in between me and whatever good news comes my way. It’s like eating a butterscotch still sealed in a wrapper. The tree is untouched by whatever worries we humans fret over. I think about how it was here before I was born and it will be here after we’re all gone. Maybe this should make me sad, but it doesn’t.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

Dear Celestial,

I am innocent.

Dear Roy,

I am innocent, too.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

Grandmamma would tell Evie to hush and remind her that getting left by a man was not the worst thing that ever happened to somebody. And Evie would say, “It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.” She said it so much that she came down with lupus. “God wanted me to see what misery really was,” Evie said. I didn’t like all this God talk, like He was up there toying with us. I preferred more of the tenderness and acceptance my grandmother promised in her hymns. I told this to Evie when I was a little boy and she said, “You got to work with the god you were given.”

You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

“I’m ready. But I can’t lie. Sometimes I feel guilty as hell for just being able to live my life.”

I didn’t have to tell him that I understood, because he knew that I did. There should be a word for this, the way it feels to steal something that’s already yours.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

But that was when we thought incarceration had something to do with being guilty or at least being stupid.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Big Roy Hamilton
Page Number: 127
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

When I was twenty-four, living in New York City, I thought maybe black love went that way, too, integrated into extinction.

Nikki Giovanni said, “Black love is Black wealth.”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 7 Quotes

“I know,” she said. “Nobody around here thought you did it. It was just the wrong race and the wrong time. Police are shady as hell. That’s why everybody is locked up.”

Related Characters: Davina Hardrick (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 10 Quotes

Now Mr. Davenport was loyal to Roy above his own daughter. In a way, the whole black race was loyal to Roy, a man just down from the cross.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:

“You say you want my advice. Here’s what I have. Tell the truth. Don’t try to cushion the blow. If you’re bad enough to do it, you’re bad enough to tell it. You can ask you mama. She’ll tell you she was so unhappy because I didn’t drop lies into her morning coffee. The whole time she knew exactly who she was married to.”

Related Characters: Carlos (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Andre, Evie
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 5 Quotes

The son that Celestial and I didn’t have would have been four or five, I think. If a kindergartener slept in the backroom, there is no way Celestial would be talking about how she’s with Andre now. I would say, “A boy need his father.” This is a scientific fact. There wouldn’t be anything else to talk about.

But as things were, there was a lot to talk about, more words than could fit into my mouth.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport, Andre
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 6 Quotes

“I accidentally killed a man,” he told me. “I’ve been through a lot, Celestial. Even if you go in innocent, you don’t come out that way. So, please?”

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

All I wanted to take with me was my tooth. For years, I stored it in a velvet box, like what a ring comes in. I couldn’t tell her because she would think that I was being sentimental, that I was turning the memory of our first date over in my mouth like a mint. She wouldn’t understand that I couldn’t leave without the rest of my body.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport
Related Symbols: Roy’s Tooth
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

Have you ever stared fury in its eyes? There is no saving yourself from a man in its throes. Roy’s face was haunted and wild. The cords of his neck muscles were like cables; his lips made a hard gash. The unceasing blows were fueled by a need to hurt me that was greater than his own need for oxygen or even freedom. His need to hurt me was greater even than my own desire to survive. My efforts to protect myself where ritualistic, mannered, and symbolic, while his fists, feet, and needs were operating from a brutal code.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 277
Explanation and Analysis:

But I was sorry. Not for what was between Celestial and me, I would never regret that. I was sorry for a lot of things. I was sorry for Evie, suffering from lupus for so many years. I was sorry for elephants killed for their ivory. I was sorry for Carlos, who traded one family for another. I was sorry for everyone in the world because we all had to die and nobody knew what happened after that. I was sorry for Celestial, who was probably watching from the window. Most of all, I was sorry for Roy. The last time I saw him on that morning before his mother’s wake, he said, “I never had a chance, did I? I only thought I did.”

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 11 Quotes

But he only turned toward Old Hickey. “It’s too much.” Then quickly—it must have been quickly—but I somehow took notice of each move, Roy tucked his lips against his teeth, gripped the tree like a brother, and then tipped his head back, presenting his face to the sky before driving his forehead against the ancient bark. The sound was muted, like the wet crack of an egg against the kitchen floor. He did it again, harder this time.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Andre
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 282
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire An American Marriage LitChart as a printable PDF.
An American Marriage PDF

Roy Hamilton Jr. Quotes in An American Marriage

The An American Marriage quotes below are all either spoken by Roy Hamilton Jr. or refer to Roy Hamilton Jr.. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Love and Marriage in Crisis Theme Icon
).
Part 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

But home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker)
Page Number: 4
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 1, Chapter 2 Quotes

Memory is a queer creature, an eccentric curator. I still look back on that night, although not as often as I once did. How long can you live with your face twisted over your shoulder? No matter what people may say, this was not a failure to remember. I’m not sure it is a failure at all.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 28
Explanation and Analysis:

Did we love so forcefully that night because we knew or because we didn’t? Was there an alarm from the future, a furious bell without its clapper? Did this hopeless bell manage to generate a breeze, causing me to reach to the floor to find my slip and use it to cover myself? Did some subtle warning cause Roy to turn and pin me to his side with his heavy arm?

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 34
Explanation and Analysis:

But what is real? Was it our uneventful first impression? Or the day in New York, of all places, where we found each other once again? Or did things “get real” when we married, or was it the day that the prosecutor in a little nowhere town declared Roy to be a flight risk? The state declared that though he may have roots in Louisiana, his home was in Atlanta, so he was held without bond or bail. At this pronouncement, Roy spat out a caustic laugh. “So now roots are irrelevant?”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

Sleeping by myself didn’t kill me then and will not kill me now. But this is what loss has taught me of love. Our house isn’t simply empty, our home has been emptied. Love makes a place in your life, it makes a place for itself in your bed. Invisibly, it makes a place in your body, rerouting all your blood vessels, throbbing right alongside your heart. When it’s gone, nothing is whole again.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 41
Explanation and Analysis:

Am I different? It has been close to three years, so I guess I have changed. Yesterday I sat under the hickory tree in the front yard. It’s the only place where I find rest and just feel fine. I know fine isn’t a lot, but it’s rare for me these days. Even when I’m happy, there is something in between me and whatever good news comes my way. It’s like eating a butterscotch still sealed in a wrapper. The tree is untouched by whatever worries we humans fret over. I think about how it was here before I was born and it will be here after we’re all gone. Maybe this should make me sad, but it doesn’t.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 80
Explanation and Analysis:

Dear Celestial,

I am innocent.

Dear Roy,

I am innocent, too.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 84
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 1 Quotes

Grandmamma would tell Evie to hush and remind her that getting left by a man was not the worst thing that ever happened to somebody. And Evie would say, “It’s the worst thing that ever happened to me.” She said it so much that she came down with lupus. “God wanted me to see what misery really was,” Evie said. I didn’t like all this God talk, like He was up there toying with us. I preferred more of the tenderness and acceptance my grandmother promised in her hymns. I told this to Evie when I was a little boy and she said, “You got to work with the god you were given.”

You also have to work with the love you are given, with all of the complications clanging behind it like tin cans tied to a bridal sedan.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 102-103
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 2 Quotes

“I’m ready. But I can’t lie. Sometimes I feel guilty as hell for just being able to live my life.”

I didn’t have to tell him that I understood, because he knew that I did. There should be a word for this, the way it feels to steal something that’s already yours.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 115
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 3 Quotes

But that was when we thought incarceration had something to do with being guilty or at least being stupid.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Big Roy Hamilton
Page Number: 127
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 4 Quotes

When I was twenty-four, living in New York City, I thought maybe black love went that way, too, integrated into extinction.

Nikki Giovanni said, “Black love is Black wealth.”

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 7 Quotes

“I know,” she said. “Nobody around here thought you did it. It was just the wrong race and the wrong time. Police are shady as hell. That’s why everybody is locked up.”

Related Characters: Davina Hardrick (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 168
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2, Chapter 10 Quotes

Now Mr. Davenport was loyal to Roy above his own daughter. In a way, the whole black race was loyal to Roy, a man just down from the cross.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Franklin Davenport
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:

“You say you want my advice. Here’s what I have. Tell the truth. Don’t try to cushion the blow. If you’re bad enough to do it, you’re bad enough to tell it. You can ask you mama. She’ll tell you she was so unhappy because I didn’t drop lies into her morning coffee. The whole time she knew exactly who she was married to.”

Related Characters: Carlos (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Andre, Evie
Page Number: 197
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 5 Quotes

The son that Celestial and I didn’t have would have been four or five, I think. If a kindergartener slept in the backroom, there is no way Celestial would be talking about how she’s with Andre now. I would say, “A boy need his father.” This is a scientific fact. There wouldn’t be anything else to talk about.

But as things were, there was a lot to talk about, more words than could fit into my mouth.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport, Andre
Page Number: 244
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 6 Quotes

“I accidentally killed a man,” he told me. “I’ve been through a lot, Celestial. Even if you go in innocent, you don’t come out that way. So, please?”

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport (speaker)
Page Number: 248
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 9 Quotes

All I wanted to take with me was my tooth. For years, I stored it in a velvet box, like what a ring comes in. I couldn’t tell her because she would think that I was being sentimental, that I was turning the memory of our first date over in my mouth like a mint. She wouldn’t understand that I couldn’t leave without the rest of my body.

Related Characters: Roy Hamilton Jr. (speaker), Celestial Davenport
Related Symbols: Roy’s Tooth
Page Number: 261
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 10 Quotes

Have you ever stared fury in its eyes? There is no saving yourself from a man in its throes. Roy’s face was haunted and wild. The cords of his neck muscles were like cables; his lips made a hard gash. The unceasing blows were fueled by a need to hurt me that was greater than his own need for oxygen or even freedom. His need to hurt me was greater even than my own desire to survive. My efforts to protect myself where ritualistic, mannered, and symbolic, while his fists, feet, and needs were operating from a brutal code.

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr.
Page Number: 277
Explanation and Analysis:

But I was sorry. Not for what was between Celestial and me, I would never regret that. I was sorry for a lot of things. I was sorry for Evie, suffering from lupus for so many years. I was sorry for elephants killed for their ivory. I was sorry for Carlos, who traded one family for another. I was sorry for everyone in the world because we all had to die and nobody knew what happened after that. I was sorry for Celestial, who was probably watching from the window. Most of all, I was sorry for Roy. The last time I saw him on that morning before his mother’s wake, he said, “I never had a chance, did I? I only thought I did.”

Related Characters: Andre (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Celestial Davenport, Carlos , Evie
Page Number: 278
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3, Chapter 11 Quotes

But he only turned toward Old Hickey. “It’s too much.” Then quickly—it must have been quickly—but I somehow took notice of each move, Roy tucked his lips against his teeth, gripped the tree like a brother, and then tipped his head back, presenting his face to the sky before driving his forehead against the ancient bark. The sound was muted, like the wet crack of an egg against the kitchen floor. He did it again, harder this time.

Related Characters: Celestial Davenport (speaker), Roy Hamilton Jr., Andre
Related Symbols: Old Hickey
Page Number: 282
Explanation and Analysis: