User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
4.5
Sometimes it’s startling to see how much history is so much a part of the present. This is a powerful story about how the prejudice of the past has in many ways not dissipated as some may think and as many of us hoped. Narrated in multiple time frames by two black women, separated by generations, but connected as family and as is evident at the end by so much more. Ava in 2017, divorced with a teenaged son, is down and out having lost her job and struggling to make ends meet . She decides to take a job as caretaker for her privileged white grandmother and she and her son move in with her. The narrative quickly switches to Josephine, Ava’s great-great-great grandmother to her life in 1924, having moved from share cropper to land owner and then moves back to her life as a young slave girl in 1855. The narratives alternate, but the movement between them feels seamless.
So much is covered here - relationships between mothers and their children - Ava and her mother, Ava and her son, Josephine and her mother and her son. You’ll find some magical realism, powers of seeing , power to perhaps change things, healing in each of the time frames. The evils of the Ku Klux Klan in 1924 and the prejudice that still exists in the present day story is hard to read about, but imperative to be read. Throughout I kept wondering how Ava would connect to her great-great-great grandmother Josephine and I was not disappointed in how Sexton brings this full circle in some stunning moments. I never got around to reading Sexton’s much praised A Kind of Freedom, but it’s on my to read list now. I’m thinking that it might be as beautifully written as this one.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Counterpoint through Edelweiss.
Rating: really liked it
Strong mother, daughter bonds. They were once slaves, but a future generation will own their own property. In Louisiana, how free is actually free when one is black, even if they do own land of their own? Slavery, escaping from slavery and a freedom that is not in only the seems but for these women, in the unseen as well. A power passed down to future daughters. The lasting effects of slavery and the power and barbarity of the KKK.
The novel is clearly written, powerfully written and though it moves backwards and forwards in time, I found this effective for this story. It is not a story with a clear cut plot, but one where it is the women, their stories that are the main focus. How a mother is always present for the daughter, dead or living, never forgotten. Although the slavery sections are never easy to read, it is a hopeful novel, one where each generation is aware of the sacrifices of the prior generation. It is a novel of love, again love that is seen, but also the love that everyone cannot see. I felt this was an authentic novel, no cliches, nor over dramatization. Just a solid, good read.
Rating: really liked it
A very a special book—powerful, riveting, and moving.
Wilkerson weaves the past and present together seamlessly — a first hand look at racism —
black and white prejudices, identity, privileges, inequality, culture, religious beliefs, mysticism (occasional prayers & hymns throughout), oppression, freedom, and healing....
through women’s relationships... and their
...families
...children & grandchildren
...marriages
...motherhood
...community
and
...friendships.
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.
Harsh facts of history and the weight of myth are explored.
Spanning more than 160 years, the story begins in present day, New Orleans and immediately we question our perceptions, ourselves, examining our social progress....
our history, and our acts of cruelty—
The intimate storytelling grabs our attention immediately as
African American Ava, and her son King, move into their grandmother’s house - Martha, who is wealthy, white, and desperate to connect.
A type of personal atonement- Martha hopes to forgive her younger self for being so selfishly absorbed in her exclusive white posh life— she offers Ava and King a home —when they needed help.
Martha’s home is large beautiful—in an exclusive white neighborhood.
She can provide King an opportunity for college-prep education, at the exclusive private school.
Martha hopes by offering
financial security, education for King, support for Ava- (talented chef included) - that she might be able to make everything right.... including alleviate some past guilt.
It’s not a fairytale easy transition.
They each are strong, strong will, and have their pride.
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 neighbor in 1924.
As a two character story lines converge, Sexton craft a haunting portrait of survival, freedom, and hope....
exploring the depths of women’s relationships, and trauma across centuries.
The bonds between mothers and their children. ...
across the color line....make and break their
relationships, and their generational legacies.
Sexton painfully brings to life through dual timelines—the continued assault on the black American psyche—
the dangers of Josephine and her family experience daily in the Jim Crowe era south and the undercurrent of racism that threaten both Ava and her son, King.
....slavery in 1855; in the Jim Crowe era in 1924, and the newly gentrifying post Katrina New Orleans in 2017.
The dynamics of a brutal past encompassing violence and racial inequality — meet fearless women separated by time —but both dealing with complex
interpersonal dynamics.
“There’s quiet as we wait, and my mother closes her eyes and presses her hands to the ceiling, palms up”.....
“Mother God, Yemaya, Spirit World, Guides, and ancestors,
We call on you today to show us old ways.
We know there’s nothing new under the sun, and we ask you to
Fill our minds with ancient wisdom, our hearts with intuition”.
Powerful wisdom....
This was a dazzling story—
Timely and timeless!!!
Rating: really liked it
This is one of those books where I just want to press it into your hands and say, “Read it.” It’s beautifully written with lush characters in both Josephine and her great-great-grandaughter Ava, the two women whose storylines cut back and forth throughout the novel. It’s about how the world changes—or doesn't change—over generations, and particularly the complexities of relationships between Black women and white women. But what stands out to me the most are the lines so good and so chilling that I had to shut the book for a moment to process it all.
Rating: really liked it
The Revisioners jumps between three timelines - 2017, 1924 and 1855. I was most interested in the present day narrative of Ava, a single bi-racial mother who moves with her son to her white grandmother's home. Yet the novel became increasingly scattered and I became increasingly confused. Slavery, the Ku Klux Klan, doulas, magical realism, a young boy's struggles at school, a grandmother's senility - all in 276 pages. I think the author is trying to make a connection between the present and the past but it got all tangled up. I loved Sexton's first novel so my anticipation of this one and its rave reviews leave me deflated.
Rating: really liked it
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton bowled me over with her first novel, A KIND OF FREEDOM, a deeply resonant novel about three generations of a Black New Orleans family. Her second novel, THE REVISIONERS, also moves through time but over an even greater span: from 1855 to 1925 to 2017. At first it seems these periods could not be more different for Black women in the South, but even across such vast changes there is much that stays the same. This book is, above all, a love letter to the traditions Black women pass down, the strength and the power that survive.
Josephine begins life as a slave, the 1855 sections of the book show us her life as a young girl. Josephine's mother is a Revisioner, a spiritual leader to the other slaves, with gifts of sight and knowledge of healing. Later, as an old woman, we see Josephine on her own land, able to enjoy all that she has built. Until everything threatens to be upended by an unassuming white woman who moves into the land next door. Ava is several generations removed from Josephine, but much of Josephine's power remains in their family. In an attempt to save money to get a new home for herself and her son, Ava moves in with her aging white grandmother. As we move back and forth between their stories, we see Josephine as a wise matriarch and Ava as she begins to come into her understanding of her own inheritance. We also see the ways well-meaning white women can seem harmless but leave massive destruction and pain in their wakes.
THE REVISIONERS doesn't quite rise to the structural and emotional perfection of A KIND OF FREEDOM, but it doesn't seem to have that kind of goal. But like Sexton's first novel, it continues to expand the kinds of Black historical and generational fiction in the world. She's truly a fantastic talent, a must-read.
Rating: really liked it
Two characters.
Two storylines.
Three timeline: 2017/1924/1855.
Excellent concept, great structure and good writing.
There is even a mythical aspect to the story (they can make things happen through their mind).
Why did I not love this book?
It’s an easy and fast read (just about 73k words) and the chapters are short.
I think that the storyline is underdeveloped and there is no depth.
I did not think that the two storyline intertwined that well (at least not to my satisfaction).
I could not tell the difference between the years.
All voices sounded the same.
I could not feel anything (I was totally numb for such a dramatic topic).
And that ending was abrupt.
Overall, I was bored and disappointed.
Perhaps I picked this book at the wrong time and I’m willing to revisit it, but not so soon.
Rating: really liked it
This story is like a string you come across that is so long you keep following it until you find out what’s at the end. A story where Black women narrate it and give you feelings of strength and courage. Black women raising their sons in the age were rap music is questionable and a time where looking a white man in the eyes is considered a “crime”.
You are nurtured throughout this story as the past and the present collide in a powerful way in one families lineage. There is limited sympathy towards white women as they share their pain, but it is unmatched to every Black woman in this story. It has no real power in this story but does show how they seek comfort from Black women. “I could prepare my bath with white women’s tears”.
I’ll admit I became naive towards the ending of the book. I thought this would be a time where maybe our voice would not be shattered by the mistakes of the white man BUT!!! I was wrong. The end hurt me in a way that I was oddly not prepared for.
There is so much to take away from this story and highly recommend you read it! On that note, I will leave you with this quote from the book, “And my momma said you could tell a lot about a man by his shoes, but if she’d come visit me, I’d tell her that’s not true. My mama makes a lot of bad decisions in her life, and in a lot of ways I had to raise her, but this time I would tell her, that’s not true. So in case there’s a man in her life she needs to judge, she’ll know to find another way”.
Rating: really liked it
Rating: 2,5
Sadly The Revisioners wasn't at all what I had hoped. Story told through 3 timelines: 2017/1924/1855.
Sexton uses these 3 timelines to talk about the same family. These there parallel stories discuss slavery, reconstruction, and modern day where similar themes of race and relationships between blacks and whites. The book is fairly short so the characters aren't developed enough for my taste. Not only the storylines aren't that special. Sexton's writing style is not bad but the plethora of characters to keep up with soured me on the first third of the book. I was expecting there to be more of a New Orleans feel to the book but there were only mentions of the Crescent City in the 2017 time line. I haven't given up on this writer. I'm looking forward to trying her debut novel A Kind of Freedom.
Rating: really liked it
“We have a ghost in here.”
That’s how Toni Morrison writes in “Beloved” about the spiteful specter that haunts an old house in Cincinnati.
Her artful invocation of that ghost remains incomparable but also widely relevant to the history of African Americans in this country. The spiritual practices that kidnapped Africans carried with them to the United States affirmed the immanent presence of their ancestors. The trauma of the Civil War inflamed white Americans’ interest in spiritualism. And Klansmen materialized the evil forces of racism as white-robed phantoms.
We have all kinds of ghosts in here.
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton takes on this legacy in her new novel, “The Revisioners.” 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 narrator, Ava, is a biracial single mother trained as a paralegal but currently between jobs. Determined to save money, she accepts an invitation from her white grandmother to move into the old woman’s mansion and work as a companion. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
Rating: really liked it
This riveting novel, The Revisioners was told in two crucial point of views and in three pivoting time lines that feature two African-American women - Ava and Josephine, who are connected by blood, and whose stories span over 160 years from the 1850’s through 1920’s, and finally in current day New Orleans, 2017.
This is a story of a family that for generations had been penetrated by deeply ingrained racism. This is a timely story that the readers will connect with and the reason why our black communities are still struggling for equality and human rights.
The story begins in current time with Ava as a biracial woman who moves in to her very wealthy white great grandmother’s home to work as her companion - the story wants me to believe just as Ava, that social progress and racism has been overcome in this family despite warnings from her own family.
My favorite was Josephine’s story, which began as an enslaved child in the mid 1800’s. Her story continues as she becomes a successful landowner in the 1920’s. Throughout the story, there were sprinkling of prayers, scriptures and church hymns that add to the setting of life in the south during those times.
The Revisioners was a sweeping and powerful story of how racial tensions spans across generation through the stories of women, their familial relationships, and the ingrained prejudice that seeps through not only in this family but the community that goes beyond skin deep.
I highly recommend this book. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is a brilliant writer that probes into the stories of the privileged to the marginalized, and the fragility of the racial divide that is still palpable in our current times. A timely and relevant story that is a must read.
Rating: really liked it
This multigenerational story focuses on Ava in 2017; and Josephine in 1924 and as a child in 1855. Both black women are mothers seeking freedom for their families while navigating white privilege and entrenched racism before the Civil War, after Reconstruction and even today. Ava and Josephine survive a society seeking to deny them dignity. [The author helps their efforts with a little magical realism every once in a while.]
Wilkerson Sexton creates wonderful characters that will stick with you. Charlotte, Josephine’s friendly white neighbor, is married to an abusive Ku Klux Klan member. Ava acts as her white grandmother’s caregiver, but the woman’s dementia shuttles her back to a previous era that claimed white superiority and thus, behaves abominably towards Ava on occasion. Both situations prove difficult and possibly dangerous.
However, this is less of a plot-driven novel than a recounting of two strong women building on the legacies of their female ancestors. Recommend.
Rating: really liked it
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s
The Revisioners taps into the gifts, glories, and gospels of three generations of Black women who, in the face of slavery and its vestiges, must reckon with matters of faith and trust. The book shifts between chapters told by Ava, an out-of-work single mother living in 2017 New Orleans, and her great-grandmother Josephine — both from her time as a widowed self-made farmer in 1925 and in her youth on the plantation in 1855. Then there is Gladys, Ava’s mother and Josephine’s daughter, who albeit chapter-less, affirms her place as a doula and the spiritual thread that connects them all. Without her, Ava might not have taken heed to the power within herself, nor the dangerous harbingers she overlooked after relocating with her son to the home of her seemingly harmless white grandmother, Martha, in exchange for payment.
Just as Gladys feared, Ava becomes worn down by Martha’s protean mood swings, which give way to menacing outbursts that evoke pangs of another time, a time of the plantation, and one that still pangs the story’s matriarch in her old age. We see this in 1925 with Josephine, a miracle child reborn of powers inherited from her mother, a Revisioner — a Black spiritual healer and a sage among the other slaves she envisioned to freedom — when a KKK-affiliated white woman arrives at her door pining for camaraderie, one that ends in blood.
For me, this heart-gripping story laid bare the many truths I’d already known of white entitlement, rage, and dishonesty, but also offered a larger notion of what it must mean to carry those burdens, of inheriting powers beyond our belief. Despite my reservations of the amount of wrongdoing I felt went spared in this book — Martha’s bigotry coddled by her age, a mother having to pander to the very people who murdered her child — I found catharsis in the true might of ancestral spirituality that was passed down to deliver us from those sorrows.
Written in the vein of Jesmyn Ward’s “Sing, Unburied, Sing,” Sexton is a gifted storyteller who not only lends credence to the emotional endurance of her people but to the boundless power Black women can summon to survive.
If you liked my review, feel free to follow me @parisperusing on Instagram.
Rating: really liked it
The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton was incredible. This multigenerational novels follows two mothers (one in two different periods of her life, in childhood and old age, in bondage and free, which, just, wow) whose power, even their inherited ancestral magic, is sucked dry by the ravening maw of racism, both the structural kind, but also the deeply deeply personal variety. This book examines childhood and motherhood in the impossible world of America that punishes Black people for existing and working for better for theirs. This book looks at how dangerous white privilege is, and how quickly it can tip into expressions of white power and devastating entitlement. This book names all of the ways that racism marks our bodies and subdues our spirit. And this book holds a very honest mirror up to the lurking danger of white supremacy that is often just below the surface of neighbourliness, friendliness, good intentions, and even love. This one was a bit spooky, a lot scary, and entirely transporting. Read this. Read Wilkerson Sexton’s first novel, A Kind of Freedom, too. Preorder it. Spread the word. Thank you counterpoint press for this advance reader copy of The Revisioners.
Rating: really liked it
[
2.5 stars]
This had great potential, but I felt that it was underdeveloped. Not a lot of time is spent in the build-up to events that could potentially be very powerful and moving. However, they lose their strength when the story rushes to a conclusion that doesn't feel earned. I also felt like way more time was spent on Josephine's story than Ava's, so the balance was off making the Ava sections feel sort of like a second thought. Good writing and a good structure, but the execution left something to be desired.
