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Staff Pick
This riveting, tautly written novel tells the parallel stories of Josephine, who escapes slavery to become a successful farmer, and her fifth-generation descendant, Ava, both of whom find themselves in the clutches of dangerous white women. The Revisioners illustrates how alive the connections between our past and our present remain, while delivering an intriguing cast of characters and suspenseful plot that make this book difficult to put down. Recommended By Matt K. , Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
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
A Time Must-Read Book of the Year
One of O, The Oprah Magazine's Buzziest Books Coming Out This Year
A Well-Read Black Girl Book Club Pick
"This
stunning novel is told in alternating chapters from the points of view
of two African-American women connected by blood but divided by time: a
biracial single mom in 2017 and a former sharecropper turned farm-owning
widow in 1924" as they discover the dangers that threaten to upend
their lives transcend generations (The New York Times Book Review, A Notable Book of the Year).
In 1924, Josephine is the proud owner of a thriving farm. As a child,
she channeled otherworldly power to free herself from slavery. Now her
new neighbor, a white woman named Charlotte, seeks her company, and an
uneasy friendship grows between them. But Charlotte has also sought
solace in the Ku Klux Klan, a relationship that jeopardizes Josephine's
family.
Nearly one hundred years later, Josephine's descendant, Ava, is a
single mother who has just lost her job. She moves in with her white
grandmother, Martha, a wealthy but lonely woman who pays Ava to be her
companion. But Martha's behavior soon becomes erratic, then threatening,
and Ava must escape before her story and Josephine's converge.
The Revisioners explores the depths of women's
relationships — powerful women and marginalized women, healers and
survivors. It is a novel about the bonds between mothers and their
children, the dangers that upend those bonds. At its core, The Revisioners ponders generational legacies, the endurance of hope, and the undying promise of freedom.
Review
"A chilling plot
twist reveals the insidious racial divide that stretches through the
generations, but it's the larger message that's so timely....This
novel is both powerful and full of hope." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"[The Revisioners] 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
Review
"[A] sweeping novel....Sexton's characters gain strength by finding one another across the generations." The New Yorker
Review
"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
About the Author
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, won the Crook's Corner Book Prize, and was the recipient of the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.