The Revisioners. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
g>Praise for The Revisioners
Winner of the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work—Fiction
Winner of the 2020 George Garrett New Writing Award
Long-listed for the 2020 Simpson/Joyce Carol Oates Prize
Named a must-read by Time, O, The Oprah Magazine,E! News, TODAY, The Washington Post, Kirkus Reviews,Electric Literature, Literary Hub, The Millions, Parade,BuzzFeed, Good Housekeeping, and PureWow
“In this incantatory novel by the author of A Kind of Freedom, a biracial New Orleans woman grapples with prejudice by excavating the story of a female ancestor who endured the roil between slavery and the Jazz Age.”
—O, The Oprah Magazine
“This stunning novel features two African-American women connected by blood but divided by time: a biracial single mom in 2017 and a sharecropper turned farm-owning widow in 1924. The book grants the harsh facts of history the weight of myth; but the plot itself is not quite the point; this is a novel about the women.”
—The New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
“Spanning more than 160 years, the story begins in present-day New Orleans and immediately questions the presumptions of our self-satisfied social progress . . . The result is a novel marked by acts of cruelty but not, ultimately, overwhelmed by them. The line stretching from Ava back to Josephine and beyond connects a collection of women attuned to danger, quick to adapt, remarkably hopeful about the future.”
—RON CHARLES, The Washington Post
“In the follow-up to her 2017 debut A Kind of Freedom, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton again showcases the impact of racism across generations. The Revisioners opens in 2017 New Orleans with Ava, a biracial single parent who has just moved herself and her son into her white grandmother’s home. Then the story flashes back to nearly a century earlier, when Ava’s great-great-grandmother Josephine, a former slave, has just met her new white neighbors in 1924. As the two characters’ storylines converge, Sexton crafts a haunting portrait of survival, freedom and hope.”
—ANNABEL GUTTERMAN, Time
“This winding, lyrical novel tells the story of several generations and the different eras they live in through the lens of one family. The novel focuses on exploring the depths of women’s relationships, the endurance of hope and trauma across centuries, and the bonds between mothers and their children.”
—Kerry Breen, TODAY
“The Revisioners intricately probes and reveals the depths of women’s relationships, from the powerful to the marginalized, especially the bonds across the color line that make and break those relationships, and their generational legacies.”
—IBRAM X. KENDI, The Atlantic
“It’s not often that novels with dueling narratives hold their weight all the way through. Usually one set of plot developments, cast of characters or style of writing carries favor over the other or others. But all three deftly interwoven storylines in Bay Area author Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s knockout of a sophomore novel are not just enthralling (enough to plow through in one sitting), they’re equally soaked through with profound wisdom, far-reaching relevance and undeniable grace . . . The sheer power of The Revisioners proves Sexton isn’t a one-shot writer. She has immense talent.”
—ALEXIS BURLING, San Francisco Chronicle
“The book is so moving in that it is a testament to the kind of magic we leave behind for others—whether it’s good magic in the form of hope, or the insidious kind of magic that leaves the world stagnant, hateful, and dangerous. While a moving and powerful read, it’s also one that might require a walk around the block to properly digest as soon as you’ve finished.”
—KATHERINE TAMOLA, Shondaland
“Sexton painfully brings to life the continued assault on the black American psyche as she ties together the dangers Josephine and her family experience daily in the Jim Crow era south and the undercurrents of racism that threaten both Ava and her young son . . . The plot of The Revisioners comes secondary to the strength and clarity of Sexton’s prose and its exploration of motherhood and daughterhood, of inherited trauma and the invisible bonds that tie us to the past and give us the power to move forward into the future.”
—JILLIAN KARANDE BuzzFeed
“This dazzling, haunting novel is an intergenerational epic, an often devastating, but beautiful accounting of family bonds, the love of mothers and sons, and the enduring strength of Black women and their legacies . . . Wilkerson Sexton deftly explores the ways in which the past isn’t prologue, but is actually what exists between the lines of our presently lived stories.”
—KRISTIN IVERSEN, NYLON
“The Revisioners would be right at home with the writing of Jesmyn Ward, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and Colson Whitehead. With her astute chronicles of contemporary black womanhood, Wilkerson Sexton has officially cemented her status as a master storyteller.”
—SARAH STIEFVATER, PureWow
“With extraordinary artistry, empathy and hope, Sexton invokes the voices of three generations of women linked by family, experiencing slavery in 1855; the Jim Crow South in 1924; and newly gentrifying post-Katrina New Orleans in 2017.”
—JANE CIABATTARI, BBC Culture
“In this uplifting, graceful novel, the recovery of one’s ancestral past is an act of empowerment—one that heals grief, clears one’s heart of hatred, and replenishes one’s hope in the future.”
—DARREN HUANG, Chicago Review of Books
“This second novel from Sexton confirms the storytelling gifts she displayed in her lushly readable debut, A Kind of Freedom . . . At the intriguing crossroads of the seen and the unseen lies a weave among five generations of women.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“Excellent . . . This novel is both powerful and full of hope.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Sexton weaves well-crafted intergenerational narratives, each set in a different era and each giving voice to strong women of color . . . The dynamics of a brutal past encompassing violence and racial inequality is core here, but the narrative is significant for acknowledging that elements of that past are not completely past and for portraying two fearless women separated by time but both dealing with white women’s racism. Recommended for all collections.”
—Library Journal (starred review)
“Few capture the literary world’s attention with their debut like this author did; her first novel, A Kind of Freedom, was nominated for the National Book Award and earned several other top accolades. Her anticipated follow-up offers a bracing window into Southern life and tensions, alternating between two women’s stories—set nearly 100 years apart.”
—DAVID CANFIELD, Entertainment Weekly
“In her new book, The Revisioners, Wilkerson builds her already expansive narrative skills . . . Braiding the parallel stories and complex interpersonal dynamics of a family and their communities, The Revisioners is a story that’s both timely and timeless.”
—SARAH NEILSON, Electric Literature
“Sexton’s follow-up to her National Book Award–nominated debut, A Kind of Freedom, tackles generational legacies, the echoes of history, and strength of bonds between women.”
—EMILY TEMPLE, Literary Hub
“[A] powerful, deeply personal second novel . . . It’s rare for dual narratives to be equally compelling, and Sexton achieves this while illustrating the impact of slavery long after its formal end. Nurturing, motherhood, and pregnancy rise up as important themes. Readers will engage fully in this compelling story of African American women who have power in a culture that attempts to dismantle it.”