Marriage and Other Monuments
Marriage and Other Monuments
by Virginia Pye
Released February 10, 2026
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-read multigenerational drama set against a tumultuous time of racial tension in the South.
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, the short story collection, Shelf Life of Happiness, and her previous novel, The Literary Undoing of Victoria Swann, 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, and elsewhere. She has taught writing at New York University and the University of Pennsylvania, and, most recently, at Grub Street in Boston. Virginia is the fiction editor of the literary journal Pangyrus, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
