Dear Friends,
Some wonderful breaking news– A KIND OF FREEDOM by Margaret Sexton Wilkerson has just been announced on the National Book Award Long-List!!!
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-national-book-awards-longlist-fiction-2017
We are thrilled beyond belief!
Some other great press happening:
NYTBR: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/05/books/review/a-kind-of-freedom-margaret-wilkerson-sexton.html
New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/14/books/review/11-new-books-we-recommend-this-week.html
ABA interview: http://www.bookweb.org/news/indies-introduce-qa-margaret-wilkerson-sexton-37106
Interview with KCRW’s Press Play - https://www.kcrw.com/people/margaret-wilkerson-sexton.
Chicago Review of Books: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/08/23/a-kind-of-freedom-margaret-wilkerson-sexton-review/
Mercury News: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/08/24/books-by-the-bay-joyce-maynard-honors-her-deepest-love-in-the-best-of-us/
Read It Forward: http://www.readitforward.com/monthly-favorites/rifs-favorites-of-august-2017/?utm_source=twitter
Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War II. Her family inhabits the upper echelon of Black society, and when she falls for no-account Renard, she is forced to choose between her life of privilege and the man she loves.
In 1982, Evelyn’s daughter, Jackie, is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent husband’s drug addiction. Just as she comes to terms with his abandoning the family, he returns, ready to resume their old life. Jackie must decide if the promise of her husband is worth the near certainty he'll leave again.
Jackie’s son, T.C., loves the creative process of growing marijuana more than the weed itself. He was a square before Hurricane Katrina, but the New Orleans he knew didn't survive the storm. Fresh out of a four-month stint for drug charges, T.C. decides to start over―until an old friend convinces him to stake his new beginning on one last deal.
For Evelyn, Jim Crow is an ongoing reality, and in its wake new threats spring up to haunt her descendants. A Kind of Freedom is an urgent novel that explores the legacy of racial disparity in the South through a poignant and redemptive family history.
Born and raised in New Orleans, MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON studied creative writing at Dartmouth and law at UC Berkeley. A recipient of the Lombard fellowship, she spent a year in the Dominican Republic working for a civil rights organization and writing. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and her stories have been published or are forthcoming in The Massachusetts Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Limestone Journal, and Broad! Magazine. She lives in the Bay Area, California. A Kind of Freedom is her debut novel.