A Kind of Freedom

Longlisted for the National Book Award
A New York Times Notable Book

The moving, multi-generational debut novel from the author of On the Rooftop, a Reese Witherspoon Book Club Pick

“Brilliantly juxtaposing World War II, the '80s and post–Katrina present, Sexton follows three generations of a Black New Orleans family as they struggle to bloom amid the poison of racism.” —People

Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War II. In 1982, Evelyn’s daughter, Jackie, is a frazzled single mother grappling with her absent husband’s drug addiction. 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. For Evelyn, Jim Crow is an ongoing reality, and in its wake new threats spring up to haunt her descendants. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s critically acclaimed debut is an urgent novel that explores the legacy of racial disparity in the South through a poignant and redemptive family history.

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. Her second novel, The Revisioners, was a national bestseller, recipient of an NAACP Image Award, and a New York Times Notable Book. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.