Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: "A Kind of Freedom"

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Last week-end, the "Summer with the National Book Awards" tour made a stop in Sarasota thanks to our library system's participation in the National Book Foundation's Book Rich Environments program. According to the NBF's website, the initiative is a collaboration among non-profit organizations, national governmental agencies and corporate publishers that "aims to infuse public housing communities across the country with a vibrant and accessible culture of books." Among other things, the program facilitates the distribution of books to children and families living in HUD public housing.

This is a long-winded explanation into how author Margaret Wilkerson Sexton and poet Diana Khoi Nguyen found themselves at Selby Public Library last week-end to talk about their books. But there's also a link of sorts between the Book Rich Environments program and Sexton's "A Kind of Freedom." In her multi-generational novel, the characters experience economic and social regression over time rather than enjoying the upward trajectory of the American dream. I haven't had a chance to dig into her book yet, but I wouldn't be surprised if some of its characters live in public housing.

"A Kind of Freedom" tells the story of three generations of a family who come of age during the Jim Crow era, the Reagan era war on drugs, and the current era of mass incarceration, respectively. Sexton believes the war on drugs and mass incarceration systemically "do the work of Jim Crow." It's a depressing concept.

Sexton drew on her own family when writing her novel. Evelyn, the family matriarch, is based loosely on her own grandmother. TC, her favorite character, bears a resemblance to a cousin who was an integral part of her family when they were growing up. Sexton shared a sad fact about how totally her and her cousin's lives have diverged. A former lawyer, Sexton was sworn into the bar the same day her cousin went to jail for the first time.

Given her comments, it didn't come as a surprise to hear that Sexton's story isn't wrapped up with a nice little bow at the end. This is not a tale in which everyone lives happily ever after. She acknowledged that readers like a positive ending. But that's just not the way she has experienced life as an African American woman.

"A Kind of Freedom" received a nomination for the 2017 National Book Award. Her sophomore novel "The Revisioners" is coming out in November. It also tells a generational story. The blurb calls it "an elegant and historically inspired story of survivors and healers, of black women and their black sons, set in the American South." Both books have been added to my Goodreads "want to read list." So many books, so little time.