Читать книгу A Kind of Freedom - Margaret Wilkerson Sexton - Страница 4

Long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award in Fiction

Winner of the First Novelist Award from the Black Caucus

of the American Library Association

Long-listed for the NCIBA Book Award for Fiction

A New York Times Notable Book

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice

One of 100 Best Books of 2017 (San Francisco Chronicle)

One of the 10 Best Books of 2017 (BBC Culture)

One of the Best Books of 2017 (Southern Living)

One of the Best Books of 2017 (Chicago Public Library)

One of the Best Books PureWow Read in 2017

One of 2017’s Best Works of Fiction (East Bay Express)

“Sexton’s first novel is set in New Orleans from the mid-1940s to the city’s ruthless real estate makeover years after Hurricane Katrina. Delivered by three accomplished narrators, the story moves through three generations of a black family, starting with the daughter of a pioneering doctor and his Creole wife, who have set themselves against her marrying the hard-working son of a janitor. This moving debut is ingeniously told in its passage back and forth through lives and changing times.”

—The Washington Post

“This wonderful debut by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton explores three generations in the life of an African-American family living in New Orleans, beginning with World War II–era Evelyn and continuing through history by unfolding the lives of Evelyn’s daughter, Jackie, and Jackie’s son, T.C., as well as the continuity of struggles that haunt them all.”

—Southern Living, One of the Best Books of 2017

“[A] powerful first novel, which traces the complex downward spiral of a black family over three generations . . . Despite the struggles, A Kind of Freedom glimmers with hope.”

—BBC Culture

“Sexton’s debut novel is a poignant, deeply emotional and timely exploration of systemic racism in America. Told through the interconnected narratives of three generations of a New Orleans family, the work captures more than seven decades of history in one book without feeling overstuffed. Quite the opposite, actually: You’ll be left wanting to know more about these incredible characters’ circumstances, motivations and dreams, both realized and unfulfilled.”

—PureWow

“Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s debut, A Kind of Freedom, a family story set in New Orleans, is really good, too.”

—TAYARI JONES, “A Year in Reading,” The Millions

“[A] compelling debut novel . . . Race, class, unemployment, drug wars and the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina all factor into Sexton’s multigenerational tale, illustrating the persistent racial disparities in our so-called ‘post-racial’ America.”

—The Mercury News

“It’s hard to believe that A Kind of Freedom is Sexton’s first novel . . . Given the recent happenings in Charlottesville, Virginia, it’s hard to imagine a more relevant release date for this lovely, important book. This is a book for our time.”

—New York Journal of Books

“This generational arc is largely related to systemic racism, but to simplify this novel as an exploration of such minimizes Wilkerson’s incredible achievement. Rather, A Kind of Freedom is a portrait of a family and a richly layered exploration of their sufferings . . . What is most remarkable about the tapestry of these stories is the way each person’s section is written a little differently from the last, like varying fabrics. Evelyn’s chapters and T.C.’s are written so distinctly that at times it feels like a completely different person wrote them. Sexton’s ability to change the style of writing to fit the time period is one of the most impressive aspects of the novel. Equally notable is how vividly each character is portrayed. Not only do each of the characters feel relatable, but they’re so fully realized that they stay with you long after finishing the story. That this multigenerational novel is a mere 228 pages and still manages to create such lifelike characters is an impressive feat . . . This remarkable debut marks Margaret Wilkerson Sexton as a writer worth watching.”

—Chicago Review of Books

“Sharp-eyed, generous, and specific in its portrayal of life in the Big Easy, A Kind of Freedom is a remarkably assured debut.”

—East Bay Express, 2017’s Best Fiction

“Sexton’s handling of switchbacks between chapters featuring the different generations and characters is deft, swift and seamless, indicative of a more seasoned novelist.”

—East Bay Times

“Three New Orleans generations make up Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s heart-wrenching novel, A Kind of Freedom, each suffering through desires, ambitions and brutal limitations . . . Sexton, who grew up in New Orleans but now lives in the Bay Area of California, tears at your heart with this multi-generational tale in which readers hope for the best for this family but know society’s limitations and empty promises will drag them down. And yet, hope remains. Or maybe the possibility of hope.”

—Monroe News Star

“Luminous and heartbreaking . . . A Kind of Freedom is a story for our times, and is deserving of a wide readership.”

—Signature Reads

“Sexton spotlights her generations at moments of potential crisis, then gives each family member room to do the best he or she can. Theirs is unquestionably a story of suffering—and, just as unquestionably, a story of endurance.”

—Read It Forward

“Through each characters’ passion, resilience, and hopes, A Kind of Freedom reveals how the pursuit of a dream can lead to an individual’s demise or redemption and how sometimes it can simultaneously lead to both.”

—Well-Read Black Girl

“Sexton’s wonderful debut traces a family through three generations in New Orleans—from a star-crossed romance in the 1940s to the crack epidemic of the 1980s to the unfathomable changes wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Injustice, hope, ambition, and the history and truth of New Orleans are the underlying subjects of this novel, explored through the stories of these well-drawn characters.”

—Literary Hub

“[A] stunning debut novel . . . The book’s greatest strength lies in its characters. Evelyn, Jackie, T.C., and their family and friends are remarkably well developed, creating in the reader a wrenching empathy to their plights . . . A whole-hearted book that couldn’t be timelier, A Kind of Freedom challenges, illuminates, and inspires.”

—The Riveter Magazine

“Future literary classic.”

—The Conversation

“Sexton’s debut novel shows us that hard work does not guarantee success and that progress doesn’t always move in a straight line.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Evelyn, Jackie, and T. C. are complex and authentic generations of a New Orleans family. The novel’s title captures reality for all three: free people trying to exercise free will while the webbing of race and class prevents them from finding free opportunity . . . Sexton’s characters share the traits of kindness and struggle, and her first novel disavows any notion that prejudice is history: perhaps changed in form, it is still passed along with the generations. This novel sparked a bidding war among literary agents, and for good reason. This family is worth every minute of a reader’s time.”

—Booklist

“Superb read! A compassionately told story of four generations in one American family who endure the unpredictable challenges of our rapidly changing society. Bound together through blood ties and love, Sexton’s keenly drawn characters sweep you into a mesmerizing cascade of loss and triumph.”

—CAROL CASSELLA, author of Oxygen, Healer, and Gemini

“In A Kind of Freedom, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton delivers a fresh and unflinching portrait of African American life and establishes herself as a new and much-needed voice in literature. Vividly imagined and boldly told, A Kind of Freedom is a book for our time. A fierce and courageous debut.”

—NATALIE BASZILE, author of Queen Sugar

“Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s A Kind of Freedom is a brilliant mosaic of an African American family and a love song to New Orleans. Her characters are all of us, America’s family, written with deep insight and devastating honesty but also with grace and beauty. Wilkerson’s stunning debut illuminates the journey of sisters and the generations they bear, the hope they have for the future, and the future still strived for, still deferred, giving us all of this in razor-edged prose that cuts to the quick.

—DANA JOHNSON, author of

In the Not Quite Dark and Elsewhere, California

“Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s A Kind of Freedom is an elegant, captivating, and generous debut novel. I’m still thinking about how our choices are indelibly influenced by our familial histories, whether we’re aware or not, and how the present connects to the past, especially regarding the societal weight of race and class. Through the interweaving of narratives within a family in New Orleans, particularly a matrilineal generation of sisters—from 1944 to the ’80s and beyond—Wilkerson Sexton demonstrates the complex web of fate, and how the demands and risks of human longing can be pitted against practicality and upward mobility, muddying the very definitions of success when it comes to survival and love. Our lives are intertwined, Wilkerson Sexton reveals, and despite our best selves and our most loving intentions, heartbreak is often inevitable. With seemingly effortless subtlety and command, Wilkerson Sexton delivers. A Kind of Freedom is multifaceted and beautiful.”

—VICTORIA PATTERSON, author of This Vacant Paradise

and The Little Brother

“I give thanks to Margaret Wilkerson Sexton for her remarkable sense of a family’s life, from early in its morning to day’s end. She interweaves generations of parent-child relations to reveal, with sharp insight, how promise and possibility can sometimes yield to circumstances shaped by the limits to freedom.”

—LAURET SAVOY, author of Trace