On the Rooftop

APPLE BOOKS REVIEW

This vivid, atmospheric audiobook transports you to a fascinating time and place: San Francisco’s Fillmore district in 1953. Vivian, a widowed nurse who moved to California during the Great Migration of the ’30s, is now the ambitious stage mother of Ruth, Esther, and Chloe, whom she’s shaped into a sophisticated jazz vocal trio called the Salvations. But on the verge of a career-making break, the sisters start to chafe against their mother’s plans, eager to seek passions of their own. From the rise of the Civil Rights movement to the earliest days of gentrification, this family drama explores many eras. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton follows her breakthrough novel The Revisioners with a powerful book about family, community, and joy in the face of oppression. Narrator Robin Miles captures the lyricism of Sexton’s prose, as well as the sparkling energy of the characters’ dialogue. This is a listen to get lost in.