The Revisioners
A Novel
-
-
4.0 • 24 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
This New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year from the author of the Reese Witherspoon Book Club pick, On the Rooftop, is "a powerful tale of racial tensions across generations" (People) that explores the depths of women’s relationships—influential women and marginalized women, healers, and survivors.
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.
"[A] stunning new novel . . . Sexton’s writing is clear and uncluttered, the dialogue authentic, with all the cadences of real speech . . . This is a novel about the women, the mothers." ―The New York Times Book Review
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This multigenerational saga about an incredible Southern family celebrates the strength of determined women and the power of love. Ava, a biracial single mom living in modern-day New Orleans, steps up to act as a companion to her elderly white grandmother, Martha, in the hopes that it will help her connect with her father. But the harsh truth about Martha’s racist past laces the two women’s relationship with disappointment and hurt. We were dazzled by how Margaret Wilkerson Sexton uses touches of magical realism to expand Ava’s world, going back generations to follow the story of her great-grandmother Josephine as she fights for survival in Jim Crow Louisiana. Full of healing warmth and poetic beauty, The Revisioners shows that our struggles do not belong to us alone—and that wonderful things can come from sharing our burdens.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sexton (A Kind of Freedom) returns with this excellent story of a New Orleans family's ascent from slavery to freedom, paying poetic tribute to their fearlessness and a "mind magic" that fixes the present, sees into the future, and calls out from the past. In alternating chapters, two women tell their haunting, frightening, and ultimately uplifting stories: Ava, a mixed-race single mom struggling to establish a career and raise a teenage son in 2017, and her great-great-grandmother Josephine, a former slave who in 1924 proudly runs the family farm. Ava's decision to be the caregiver for her rich white grandmother, Martha, as she slips into dementia will trigger disturbing premonitions for her own cancer-stricken mother, a doula named Gladys. Josephine's story focuses largely on her struggle to turn over management of the family farm to a son intent on standing up to the Klan and a troubling interaction with a shy white neighbor who seeks out Josephine's rumored powers to get pregnant and appease an abusive husband. A chilling plot twist reveals the insidious racial divide that stretches through the generations, but it's the larger message that's so timely. "Ain't no use in hate," Josephine's mother advises. "Whatever you trying to get away from, hate just binds you to it." This novel is both powerful and full of hope.
Customer Reviews
Favorite Read of 2022
This book just left me praying for a book two. I loved the eco-system the “revisioners” represented. Even within the greatest accomplishments, the threat of bigotry is ever present.
What is with these timeline stories?
I really enjoyed the three stories of three women who shared a heritage and the theme of women and their struggle to protect their children. I had a problem with the way the story was told. The author is skillful, the characters are interesting and I loved the cultural experience. Going back and forth in time over and over again was confusing.