It’s hard to grasp that it’s been nearly six years since our country was in such turmoil. A pandemic had shut down businesses and schools. And the Black Lives Matter demonstrations grew and helped to bring down the Confederate monuments which lined a famous avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

Virginia Pye sets her novel, Marriage and Other Monuments, against this historic backdrop. While the statues of Confederate generals are being torn down, the marriages of two sisters, Cynthia and Melissa, are also crumbling. The two women were close when they were children, but their lives have gone in different directions and now they barely speak. The breakup of their families brings them physically close, but it will take time for them to mend their emotional scars.

Cynthia and Bobby Powers, a couple who had once believed their marriage would last a lifetime, found themselves facing a crisis. After their wedding, Cynthia left her job at an accounting firm, but she never disclosed the reasons behind her departure. Bobby, a member of a wealthy and influential family, works for his father, Preston, but he never felt fully accepted by him. Preston has entrusted Bobby with the responsibility of selling condos for the Powers Company, but the pandemic has devastated the real estate market. When Bobby reveals their dire financial situation to Cynthia, she packs her bags, and leaves. 

Melissa has joined the protestors along Monument Avenue. After one march, she’s arrested and spends the night in jail. Although Melissa’s husband, Marshall, is Black, he resents her involvement in the BLM movement, telling her she doesn’t understand what it truly means to be Black. Melissa can’t understand how Marshall can stand on the sidelines, especially because their son is in college and she worries about his future and safety. 

Marshall has built a respectable real estate business, owning several buildings in Richmond. He tells Melissa they need to take a break and tells her to leave their home and move into one of his apartments. While Melissa is hurt by his dismissal, she agrees that time apart may be a good idea. However, she’s shocked to see that her next door neighbor is Cynthia, who bumped into Marshall and told him she had left Bobby and needed a place to stay. Marshall offered her an apartment in the same building where Melissa is staying.

Marshall and Melissa have been growing apart for a long time. Melissa believes the only way to show support for the Black community is by protesting, while Marshall has spent his time working on restoring the Metropole, a theater space that he hopes will become a community center. He finds someone who does care, Tyisha Mayfield, a Black woman from his past. Although he meets her while she’s selling potions and candles at a table near the protests, she’s more complicated and someone who could help him make his dreams for the Metropole come alive.

Bobby begins spending his time at one of his childhood haunts, Ralph’s Canoe Shack. He always loved being on the river and working there now, helping others enjoy their boat rides, convinces him that he needs to make a change. Cynthia, who always berated Bobby for not standing up to Preston, is impressed. Does their marriage stand a chance?

Turns out that the Preston and Stone families – Virginia White and Virginia Black – have more in common than their descendants ever knew. When the truth comes out, changes will be made that will benefit both sides.

Pye has managed to take a period in time and create a story that, while fictional, seems very real. I was living near Richmond at the time and remember the news reports and headlines that reported on the protests and the divisions that were shaking the city. Now, the Confederate statues are gone, most of the pedestals empty. But the struggle over equal rights remains.

Marriage and Other Monuments
Virginia Pye

Top Shutterstock photo by Kim Kelley-Wagner
RICHMOND, VA – June 10, 2020, Memorials placed near a statue of Robert E. Lee on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia after several days of protests nationally and worldwide

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