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Sebastian Ritscher

THE REVISIONERS

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton returns with this equally elegant and historically inspired story of survivors and healers, of black women and their black sons, set in the American South.
In 1925, 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 her grandchild to be her companion. But Martha's behavior soon becomes erratic, then even 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 a mother and a child. At its core, THE REVISIONERS ponders generational legacies, the endurance of hope, and the undying promise of freedom. 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.
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Published 2019-11-05 by Counterpoint

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I was mesmerized by The Revisioners, a time-bending epic about family, desire, strength, and terror, as well as the possibly supernatural power of the stories we tell ourselves. Was mesmerized? Am mesmerized, will remain mesmerized. Sexton's novel is extraordinary, and its effects will go on and on.

In paying homage to the triumph of black women who survived and even thrived in a society built to deny them dignity, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton has written an astonishing novel. The Revisioners is nothing less than a rare celebration of the power of women and mothers to build a better future. Sexton's style is fluid and seamless, and readers will find themselves hoping to meet Ava and Josephine in real life.

With extraordinary artistry, empathy and hope, Sexton invokes the voices of three generations of women linked by family... Read more...

UK: John Murray France: Editions Actes Sud Holland: Nieuw Amsterdam Italy: Fazi Editore

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's THE REVISIONERS is on the NYT Notable Books of 2019! Read more...

...Sexton exquisitely weaves themes of motherhood, survival and freedom throughout a touching and dynamic narrative. Read more...

[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.

The Revisioners is an uplifting novel of black women and their tenacity.

...The Revisioners is a sublime marriage of stunning sentences and a chilling, insidious story, like if Get Out were literary fiction. Read more...

...Sexton again showcases the impact of racism across generations... Sexton crafts a haunting portrait of survival, freedom and hope. Read more...

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's THE REVISIONERS is on a list of anticipated November books in the New York Times and Washington Post. Read more...

I Wanted to Mine the History: The Millions Interviews Margaret Wilkerson Sexton Read more...

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.

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton has done it again with The Revisioners, where ties beyond family bind us to the past. A novel as beautiful as it is hauntingly dazzling, it's filmic in scope and sensory detail.

THE REVISIONERS is a California Book Awards Fiction Finalist!

I read this wonderful novel nearly in a single sitting, carried along by its exemplary pacing and structure, its rich cast of characters, and its deft explorations of trauma, cruelty, survival, and love. Written in a haunted present and a past that's not past, The Revisioners honors the living and the lost in a painful, tender testament to the power of fiction.

This second novel from Sexton confirms the storytelling gifts she displayed in her lushly readable debut... deftly structured novel ... wondrous ... At the intriguing crossroads of the seen and the unseen lies a weave among five generations of women.

THE REVISIONERS has been named for the November Indie Next List: "...Sexton does a beautiful job of developing her characters while accurately describing the racism that is never far away no matter the time period. This story is loving and devastating in the best way." Read more...

... stunning ... reminds us that though you may share blood, there are also connections deeper and more powerful than blood, connections that turn a collection of individuals into a community, and will forever be more significant than any bond that's merely skin deep. Read more...

The Revisioners" also reminds us that though you may share blood, there are also connections deeper and more powerful than blood, connections that turn a collection of individuals into a community, and will forever be more significant than any bond that's merely skin deep. Read more...

This elegant and powerful novel sweeps you up from the very first page, spanning the last gasps of slavery to the present day. The Revisioners by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton plunges you deep within the complexity of a Louisiana family as the echoes of history repeat over generations and provides a powerful testament to the ingenuity and resilience of women protecting themselves and those they love in an unyielding world.

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's The Revisioners is a sweeping, deeply felt meditation on sacrifice and survival. Nuanced and elegantly told, The Revisioners reminds us that history is alive and that we should never lose hope.

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's writing is graceful and stylish, her truths relevant and necessary?it's just so exhilarating to read her. I was mesmerized by The Revisioners, an impeccable novel of magic, loss, and family, all anchored by generations of powerful women.

...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 . . . 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.