Items related to A Kind of Freedom: A Novel
[Read by Kevin Kenerly, Bahni Turpin, and Adenrele Ojo]
A stunning first novel in the vein of Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszille, The Turner House by Angela Flournoy, and Grace by Natashia Deon
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.
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-name 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 that he will leave again.
Jackie's son T. C. loves the creative process of growing marijuana more than the weed itself. He finds something hypnotic about training the seedlings, testing the levels, trimming the leaves, and drying the buds. He was a square before Hurricane Katrina, but the New Orleans he knew didn't survive the storm, and in its wake he was changed too. Now, fresh out of a four-month stint for possession with the intent to distribute, he decides to start over -- until an old friend convinces him to stake his new beginning on one last deal.
A stunning first novel in the vein of Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszille, The Turner House by Angela Flournoy, and Grace by Natashia Deon
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.
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-name 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 that he will leave again.
Jackie's son T. C. loves the creative process of growing marijuana more than the weed itself. He finds something hypnotic about training the seedlings, testing the levels, trimming the leaves, and drying the buds. He was a square before Hurricane Katrina, but the New Orleans he knew didn't survive the storm, and in its wake he was changed too. Now, fresh out of a four-month stint for possession with the intent to distribute, he decides to start over -- until an old friend convinces him to stake his new beginning on one last deal.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author:
Review:
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth and law at the University of California, Berkeley. A recipient of the Lombard fellowship, she spent a year in the Dominican Republic working for a civil-rights organization and writing her first manuscript, A Kind of Freedom, which received an honorable mention in the Leapfrog Press Fiction Contest. Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Grey Sparrow Journal, Limestone Journal, and Broad! magazine, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize.
''... [T]his emotionally wrenching, character-rich debut spans three generations in a city deeply impacted by segregation, economic inequality, and racial tensions... Sexton's narrative navigates complex topics with an adroit sensitivity that lends sympathy to each character's realistic, if occasionally self-destructive, motivations. Being able to capture 70 years of New Orleans history and the emotional changes in one family in such a short book is a testament to Sexton's powers of descriptive restraint. In this fine debut, each generation comes with new possibilities and deferred dreams blossoming with the hope that this time, finally, those dreams may come to fruition.'' --Publishers Weekly, starred review
''Sexton subtly lays bare the ever-present societal forces at work to undermine black success and family.'' --The Huffington Post, 1 of 24 Incredible Books to Add to Your Shelf This Summer
''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
''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
''Sexton subtly lays bare the ever-present societal forces at work to undermine black success and family.'' --The Huffington Post, 1 of 24 Incredible Books to Add to Your Shelf This Summer
''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
''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
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- PublisherBlackstone Audio, Inc.
- Publication date2017
- ISBN 10 1538450895
- ISBN 13 9781538450895
- BindingAudio CD
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Kind of Freedom
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Kind of Freedom
Published by
Blackstone Audio, Inc.
(2017)
ISBN 10: 1538450895
ISBN 13: 9781538450895
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Quantity: 1
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