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A Kind of Freedom

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (Goodreads Author)

3.78 · Rating details · 3,163 ratings · 476 reviews

Evelyn is a Creole woman who comes of age in New Orleans at the height of World War Two. 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 dru ...more

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Hardcover, 230 pages

Published August 8th 2017 by Counterpoint LLC

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Lists with This Book

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2017 National Book Awards Longlist

40 books — 55 voters

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76 books — 167 voters

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Aug 24, 2017 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it

Eleanor and her sister Ruby are sisters living in New Orleans. As Creoles they have a higher standard of living then many, their father a respected doctor, and as such they escape much of the racism inherent in the South. When Eleanor falls for a man, who has nothing, a man not her social equal, her standard of living drops drastically. Like her mother she too will have two daughters, and her daughter Jackie will fall in love with a man trying to fight a drug addiction, and their son will spend ...more

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Dec 31, 2017 Michelle rated it it was amazing

Shelves: diaspora, tob, historical-fiction, audiobook, debuts, 2018, 2018-popsugar-challenge

“They were the children of once-upon-a-time slaves, born into a kind of freedom, but they had traveled down through the wombs with what all their kind had been born with — the knowledge that God had promised next week to everyone but themselves.” – Edward P Jones, All Aunt Hagar’s Children

A Kind of Freedom is a family saga that covers three generations from 1944 through 2011. It is told through the viewpoints of three different narrators each representing different key timeframes in the American Black experience.

The first of these is Evelyn. She comes from a well-to-do Creole family with high expectations for their daughters. It is 1944; nearly 100 years since the abolition of slavery but before the Civil Rights movement. America is at war with Nazi Germany. Evelyn’s relationship with Renard, a bright hard-working student with uneven hems in his suit pants, highlights not only the colorism and classism that existed within the Black community, but brings to the forefront the dilemma faced by African-Americans during World War II. Should they actively engage in a war oversees when the real battle was at home? How do you fight for someone else’s rights when you don’t have your own? When Renard returns home from the war news of Evelyn’s pregnancy sends him soaring. But it is the treatment of the Black soldiers at the hands of their fellow countrymen that brings him to tears. To envision the possibility of true freedom in their dealings with the other Allied Forces yet fall prey to discrimination. There he stood as a hero who had fought and risked his life for his country and still he had to endure stark disparities in “colored” soldiers’ barracks and resources as well as abuses by white American soldiers.

Evelyn and Renard’s eldest daughter Jackie is the 2nd narrator in the story. It is now 1986 and Black Americans have made strides not only in music, film and sports, but also in science, medicine and academia as well. It is also the height of the crack epidemic. The pull of addiction and the struggle to break free from its hold is experienced through Jackie’s pharmacist husband Terry after he becomes addicted to crack.

2010 brings us to the last narrator – Jackie and Terry’s son, T.C. This segment begins with T. C.’s release from prison. Incarcerated for possession with the intent to sell, T.C. gets released early due to prison overcrowding just as his girlfriend is about to give birth to his son.
It is five years since the levees broke. By this time America is supposed to be a post-racial society and yet Hurricane Katrina saw a delayed response in part due to the negative representation of Black victims in the media. More than 1,800 people died, the land was ravaged, homes lost and yet -- the government waited. T.C. gives voice to the communities that still haven’t rebounded, that lay desolate and ruined; their inhabitants trapped in a wasteland they can’t afford to flee nor redeem.

Although she touches upon all these weighty topics, Sexton’s characters are so well developed that your focus is on the intriguing family saga. She does not hit you over the head with socio-political commentary. It is these nuances layered within the rich family dynamic that makes A Kind of Freedom such a powerful book. ...more

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Jun 09, 2017 Faith rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, overdrive, publisher, reviewed

I was sad when this book ended, and that's saying a lot coming from me because I usually think books are too long. I wanted to know more about each member of this extended creole family. The book is set in New Orleans in three time periods and skips back and forth among the stories of the three main protagonists.

In 1944 Evelyn is attending nursing school. She and her two siblings are the children of a doctor. Her father has ambitions for her which go awry when Evelyn falls in love with Renard, ...more

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May 25, 2017 Jessica rated it it was amazing

I love love love this book. The author tells a beautifully tragic story of young love, upward mobility, ambition, success, unrealized potential, and even mental illness across three generations of a New Orleans family. Throughout, she delicately and expertly balances heavy themes of race, class, and colorism within a moving and suspenseful plot.

I have read tons of novels and I enjoy jumping into the lives of characters and imagining what might happen when the written story ends. While reading, ...more

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Nov 02, 2017 Jessica Woodbury rated it it was amazing

Shelves: authors-of-color, historical-fiction, library, best-2017-arcs

My entire reading life is spent chasing a specific kind of thrill, the thrill of being so emotionally involved in a story that it has power over me. I look for other thrills too but this is the one that I want most, and sometimes I go for long stretches without feeling it. I was in that kind of stretch recently. I read most of the best books of 2017 very early in the year but then there were many perfectly good books but books that didn't have absolute control over my brain. Until now.
My entire reading life is spent chasing a specific kind of thrill, the thrill of being so emotionally involved in a story that it has power over me. I look for other thrills too but this is the one that I want most, and sometimes I go for long stretches without feeling it. I was in that kind of stretch recently. I read most of the best books of 2017 very early in the year but then there were many perfectly good books but books that didn't have absolute control over my brain. Until now.

There are two things that make this book work so perfectly. There's the characters themselves, they are drawn warmly and intimately, the three generations presented to us at a time of their greatest joy and greatest vulnerability. Seeing characters in that moment, where there is so much to gain and so much to lose all at once, ties you to them. Secondly, there's this book's structure, which at first glance seems like the kind of simple multigenerational span that is common in fiction these days. The reason it works so well is because of the first thing, that specific emotional moment we have seen in each character. We see them at a moment of promise and then we jump a generation later to immediately get to see how it all panned out.

Sexton is able to do this same thing over and over again, and yet even after the initial realizations of where these characters start and where they end, she continues to tell us these stories of hope and promise, even when we know how they end. We don't get many of the dots inbetween connected, we don't get to see how these characters went from A to B, instead we see just how much people are capable of change. And we see the inevitable rise of hope in each generation as they look at the generation to follow.

As mentioned in the summary, this is absolutely a book about race and the limitations the characters face because of their place in society. But it skips the Civil Rights Era entirely, and doesn't use specific incidents of racism to call our attention to it. Instead, like so often in real life, it is insidious and engages with larger systems, class, and gender in complicated ways.

I was immediately engaged in this book, it took me a few days to read it because even though it's not long, I needed some space with all the emotions it drew out of me. I'm so glad the National Book Award brought this gem to my attention. It's one of the great reading pleasures I had this year and I hope we see many more from Sexton. ...more

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Oct 06, 2017 Trudie rated it really liked it

Shelves: other-awards, tob18, best-of-2017

I picked this book up on a whim after I saw it on the National Book Awards longlist and was also delighted to find it available here in my local library in NZ.

Set in New Orleans and jumping between three generations of the same family it initially reminded me of another debut novel Homegoing in particular the way both authors trace the effects of racism through multiple generations. I think A Kind of Freedom does this less overtly, however the reader is left in no doubt as to the reasons wh ...more

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Aug 16, 2017 Book Riot Community added it

Shelves: new-books-liberty-s-recs

Spanning over 70 years, this powerful debut novel follows a Creole woman and her children in New Orleans as they deal with love, addiction, racism, redemption, and the devastation left by Hurricane Katrina. It’s a stark look at the legacy of racial disparity in the South, as Eleanor and her family seek to make a life for themselves.

Backlist bump: Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile

Tune in to our weekly podcast dedicated to all things new books, All The Books: http://bookriot.com/listen/shows/allt...

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Oct 02, 2017 Meike rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: usa, 2017-read

Move over, Jonathan Franzen, this is only Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's first (!) book and she already wrote a blues version of the Great American Novel. Set in the author's hometown of New Orleans and spanning from 1944 until 2010, "A Kind of Freedom" tells the story of three generations of a black family. The protagonists are confronted with different historical events, from WW II to hurricane Katrina, and are subjected to the changing nature of racial relations over the course of these decades. ...more

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Oct 20, 2018 Lata rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: auth-f, poc-actor, poc-author, x2018-read

This book brought tears to my eyes. The characters’ and their desires and dreams, so often thwarted by their reality and all its barriers, and the love and hope holding the different generations of a family together were all so beautifully written.

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Jan 26, 2018 Gabriella rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2018-reads, southern-lit

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s debut novel is a densely layered, stunningly rendered account of three generations of New Orleanians, all of whom are striving to sustain their family’s wealth, health, and freedom by the means available to black people of their time.

Sexton’s account of the impermanence of black American wealth felt specifically relevant, given the New York Times’ recent study about the dismal outcomes for even the most well-off black boys. This piece received a WHOLE lot of buzz on my Twitt Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s debut novel is a densely layered, stunningly rendered account of three generations of New Orleanians, all of whom are striving to sustain their family’s wealth, health, and freedom by the means available to black people of their time.

Sexton’s account of the impermanence of black American wealth felt specifically relevant, given the New York Times’ recent study about the dismal outcomes for even the most well-off black boys. This piece received a WHOLE lot of buzz on my Twitter feed, mostly from people dismayed over how hard it was for black men to get ahead in this country. As a companion piece, A Kind of Freedom does a remarkable job at filling in the bleak, objective statistics of the study with authentic, subjective stories. These characters study and strive and are painstakingly close to graduating, or getting the right promotion, or overcoming their addictions. They felt so familiar, and just like our real-life stories that prove how very hard it is for even the most well-intentioned black families to keep their sons and husbands away from prison, unemployment, and addiction.

On the other hand, after I read the Times study, I felt, in a way, ignored. Obviously, the findings about black male earning potential (or lack thereof) implicate those who they are most often in relationship with, black women, a whole lot. Once again, I felt as if Sexton picked up where the study left off, by choosing to flesh out the lives of the long-suffering women supporting these troubled men. She shows how great their own dreams are, instead of simply focusing on the ones of their husbands or fathers, and even shows how their dreams are often crushed not by “the white man,” but by the men in their own households. She also isn’t afraid to create women who are dependent and more concerned with their men’s welfare than their own, in a way that felt greatly accurate, if not the most hashtag-feminist.

More on the women: there’s a lot of talk about how well this book depicts New Orleans, but I was most thematically drawn to Sexton’s portrayal of the family’s various sisters. These women are bickering and competitive, but also support each other through an untold number of family tragedies. Sexton does a lot of great work to show the gradients and complexity of this love, and I wish we’d been able to see it more.

I say this because by far, my biggest gripe with this book is ITS LENGTH! This is a 220-pager that could’ve easily gone on for double that, given the great work Sexton does with setting up the family members and their situations. I felt like the generational story we were promised was by no means resolved, or even fully explored, by the time we reached the supposed end. It’s the worst sort of tease, because you know these characters could become more familiar to you as a reader. This is the thing I love so much about intergenerational fiction—getting to sit in a story until its people start looking like their parents, and with even more time, start looking like your own family. With this novel, let’s just say I had time to sit down, but just when I thought about kicking my feet back, I was reading the Acknowledgements page.

I’m eager for Sexton’s future work, but pray it’s at least twice the length of A Kind of Freedom. After all, this novel clearly proves she has the chops to pull off something a lot more epic. ...more

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Jul 14, 2018 Never Without a Book™ rated it really liked it

The end of slavery meant freedom, but not entirely. A Kind of Freedom by Margaret Sexton tells the story of three generations of one black family in New Orleans, as told through three of its members: Evelyn, her daughter Jackie, and Jackie's son T.C. Shifting between 1940’s, 1980’s and 2010.
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Evelyn, a daughter of a well-to-do family (her mother is Creole, her father a black doctor who has raised himself to respectability), and Renard, a young man from a poor Twelfth Ward neighborho ...more

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Mar 03, 2018 Lisa rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

[4+] I finished A Kind of Freedom right before my first visit to New Orleans a few days ago. The novel is about three generations of families in New Orleans - during WWII, in the 80s and the present (post Katrina). Sexton writes well, exploring their lives and the legacy of racism in the South. It was an involving, powerful read and lingered with me throughout my days in New Orleans, informing the way I saw the city.

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Jul 25, 2017 Rachel León rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2017, read-in-2017

I've been a bit more generous with my star ratings lately, but this novel is fully deserving of every single star. I'm reviewing this one for CHIRB and I'm trying to figure out how to possibly do this remarkable book justice. Another worthy contender for best book of the year.

Here's the link to the review: https://chireviewofbooks.com/2017/08/...

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Jan 22, 2018 Cynthia rated it really liked it

Shelves: books-read-in-2018

Sexton takes us from World War II New Orleans through 2010 by tracing the adventures of a family. The story begins with twenty-two year old Evelyn, who’s studying to become a nurse, then to Jackie Marie who married her high school sweetheart, and finally to her son T. C. Like most people’s lives there experience is alternately happy and sad but a thread that runs through out the book are relationships between the women especially sisters and how they can be loving and enriching whole also compet ...more

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Oct 07, 2017 Donna rated it liked it

This is a short book, but it seems much shorter because it spans 3 separate generations. It starts out in the 1940's with a well off Creole family. I think I enjoyed that story the most. Then the next generation, takes place in the 1980's, and the third generation is set in 2010. The time frame also seemed a little too stretched out. The characters seemed much younger in the subsequent generations but when I did the math of the years, I thought they should have been older.

I liked this. It was a ...more

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Jul 24, 2017 Beverly rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2017, southern-literature, united-states, newtome2017, historical-fiction, contemporary

This was a 4 - 4.5 read for me.
Thoughts coming shortly

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Aug 20, 2017 Kasa Cotugno rated it really liked it

Shelves: culture-african-american, arc, nyt-notable-book, awards-nominees, loc-usa-la, theme-family

The end of slavery meant freedom, but not entirely. Life in 1944 New Orleans is far from ideal for this despite their privileged beginnings as the only Creole physician in the Seventh Ward. Nelson and his wife only want the best for their two daughters, but life doesn't always run the track we want it to. Shifting between 1944, 1986 and 2010, the course of the family is charted through three succeeding generations, and becomes richer with each invocation until when the final page is turned, set ...more

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Oct 02, 2017 Nakia rated it liked it

Great writing. Great debut.

I think I would have enjoyed this more had the story been linear and if there had been more information about each generation. Jumping back and forth between generations kept pulling me out of the current story. I also wanted to know so much more, especially about Evelyn and how she handled motherhood and marriage to Renard. I loved their story, and Ruby's audacious behavior was so entertaining. I wanted to stay with them throughout the novel, or at least stay with th ...more

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Apr 22, 2018 Britt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2018

I read this book as I was writing my wedding vows. It brought a very grounding emotion to this my 50-11th draft. I loved the way Sexton allowed the characters to make real life decisions and it made the characters easy to connect with. I finished it overnight in one sitting and I look foreward to reading it again in the future.

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Dec 30, 2017 Kay rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: fans of Homegoing and The Turner House

A Kind of Freedom is one hell of a page turner. Even though there was a bit of a lag towards the second half, I definitely enjoyed this story.

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Sep 23, 2017 LindaJ^ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: family, national-book-award-longlist, historical-fiction, american-history, jim-crow

This is the first of the 10 books on the 2017 National Book Award Fiction longlist I have read. It is a debut novel. The book is told by three members of an extended family living in New Orleans. The three family members are Evelyn (mother of second narrator and grandmother of the third narrator), Jackie (daughter of Evelyn and mother of the third narrator), and T.C. (grandson of Evelyn and son of Jackie).

We hear first from Evelyn, then Jackie, and then T.C., each telling the story of the famil This is the first of the 10 books on the 2017 National Book Award Fiction longlist I have read. It is a debut novel. The book is told by three members of an extended family living in New Orleans. The three family members are Evelyn (mother of second narrator and grandmother of the third narrator), Jackie (daughter of Evelyn and mother of the third narrator), and T.C. (grandson of Evelyn and son of Jackie).

We hear first from Evelyn, then Jackie, and then T.C., each telling the story of the family for their generation. Evelyn's story starts in 1944 when she first meets Renaud. Her story, spread over the span of the book, focuses on her relationship with her parents, her sister Ruby, and Renaud. It ends with her marriage to Renaud when he returns from WWII and she is very pregnant. Her story is peppered with encounters with white policemen and incidents of separation of blacks and whites -- on buses, trains, cafes, and more. Evelyn's father is one of the first "negro" doctors and her family lives in a neighborhood where financially well off African -Americans live.

Jackie is our second narrator. It took me a bit to appreciate that she was Evelyn's and Renaud's second child. Her sister Sylvia, a criminal lawyer, is nine years older. As Jackie's story opens in the late 1970's, her son T.C. has just been born, her husband Terry has not been seen for awhile, and she is working for her parents at a school her father established. Her story focuses on a few months in her troubled marriage to Terry. Terry, a pharmacist, is a crack addict who returns after his second or third stint in rehab determined to be there for his family. Jackie's family has little faith in Terry staying clean. Jackie slowly starts to trust him but that trust is soon breached. Great things are expected from Terry but he finds himself as the only black person in all his jobs and it seems to do something to his confidence.

Finally we hear from T.C. His story starts as he is released from prison, having spent 4 months in jail for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. He leaves prison intending to get a job and be a father to his as yet unborn son. At the urging of his best friend, he is soon again growing marijuana. His son is born and he is determined to marry his son's mother and accept the job his Aunt Sylvia has arranged at her law firm. But before he manages to do that, he is picked up with about a pound of marijuana in his possession and finds himself back in prison on a 3 year sentence.

I had not read anything about this book before I started it. As I listened to Evelyn's first section I wondered why this story of a the romances of two sisters in the 1940's was on the longlist. When the narrator changed (a different person reads each narrator's sections, so it is easy to hear the change), I wondered what relation Jackie had with the romance. It soon became clear who Jackie was and her story was certainly not a romance. And when T.C. begins his story with his prison release, I felt real sadness -- how did the much loved T.C. end up in prison? When the cycle brings us back to Evelyn, I am no longer thinking romance. While Evelyn and Renaud's marriage is solid, I now know things have not gone so well for their daughter Jackie and their grandson T.C. Hurricane Katrina plays a role - from T.C. we see how Katrina changed New Orleans, especially African-American neighborhoods. There is no preaching in this book. It tells a story and lets you draw your own conclusions. ...more

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Feb 25, 2019 Charlotte (charandbooks) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2019, black-authors-read, favorites

A Kind of Freedom describes the legacy of slavery carried on as institutionalized racism through a multigenerational story of a Black family in New Orleans.

We follow three main characters through which the story is told: Evelyn in the 1940s who falls in love with less well-off Renard, her daughter Jackie in the 1980s who just had a baby and is trying to figure out life with her husband who is trying to recover from drug addiction, and finally Jackie’s son T.C. in the 2010’s who has just been re A Kind of Freedom describes the legacy of slavery carried on as institutionalized racism through a multigenerational story of a Black family in New Orleans.

We follow three main characters through which the story is told: Evelyn in the 1940s who falls in love with less well-off Renard, her daughter Jackie in the 1980s who just had a baby and is trying to figure out life with her husband who is trying to recover from drug addiction, and finally Jackie’s son T.C. in the 2010’s who has just been released from prison after he has been charged for possession of marijuana.

This story is the personalized version of major political and social movements in the United States over the span of about 100 years. During the late Jim Crow era, Renard struggles with thoughts of sacrificing his own life during WWII just to be deemed half American at home and wonders if his service will be recognized and help offer a better future for the following generation. “When Americans celebrate the country’s victory in WWII, but forget that the U.S. armed forces were segregated, that the Red Cross segregated blood donors or that many black WWII veterans returned to the country only to be denied jobs or housing, it becomes all the more difficult to talk honestly about racism today.” (Matthew Delmont, Smithsonian.com) Socially disadvantages communities post-WWII suffered further when global competition led to a so called “double-dip recession” in 1980-1982 and a lot of blue-collar jobs were lost and unemployment increased by 2.6%. The social gap widened and at the same time crack cocaine from South America found its way into the (southern) US. Jackie’s husband Terry is trying to fight his addiction with no community support and a whole lot of prejudice against him that will affect the future of his whole family. Started by the Nixon campaign and White House, followed by Reagan and finally Bill Clinton, the “war on drugs” is “a major policy, with massive implications on spending and societal impact, to declare two classes of people [Blacks and the antiwar left] should be destroyed, locked up if possible for the convenience and pleasure of people in power. The justice system was warped into a private enforcer.” [Erik Sherman, Forbes Magazine] T.C. who was a was a promising athlete and had some setbacks due to health issues, finds himself in post-Katrina New Orleans with his options for a future shaped by inflated marijuana possession laws, the three-strike policy, and disproportional incarceration of African-Americans.

The author tackles so many important topics and it’s hard to believe that this is her debut novel. The characters are realistic and relatable. I think T.C.’s storyline was the most developed and I found myself wanting a bit more from Evelyn’s and Jackie’s narration. I definitely recommend that you pick up this novel!

4.5/5 stars
...more

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Aug 17, 2018 El rated it really liked it

Shelves: library-borrow, 21st-centurylit, biddles

I have really been attentive to first lines in essays, memoirs, books lately. "Later, Evelyn would look back and remember that she wasn't the one who noticed Renard first" (p1).

I was drawn in by that first line. I found the whole multi-generational novel about love and racial inequality in a New Orleans family a wonderful read, only more impressive to realize this is Sexton's debut novel. We're in for a treat with her, I think, and I cannot wait to read more of her fiction.
...more

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Feb 13, 2018 Dawnie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-book, read-2018, e-books, audiobooks

More 2.5 stars

I wanted to love this, I actually started this book expecting it to be at least a four star read, based on Howe it was recommended to me and what i heard in reviews from friends here on goodreads or booktuber.
It sounded like a book I would love.
Family story? Gernation overarchingly told? Different culture than my own? Different timelines throughout the story?
Basically checking every box I look for in my "contemporary" reads.

And this wasn't bad, it's ...more

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Oct 14, 2017 David rated it it was ok

Allow me to begin on a positive note: I really like this cover.

Also it is nice to see a young author get published. Also the National Book Award 2017 Fiction judges felt this was good enough to make their longlist. Also Sexton attempts to touch upon a number of very important topical issues like rascism, poverty, addiction, crime, faith, war, voter suppression, infidelity, food insecurity, and the importance of access to a good education.

Alright, people, I am done with th Allow me to begin on a positive note: I really like this cover.

Also it is nice to see a young author get published. Also the National Book Award 2017 Fiction judges felt this was good enough to make their longlist. Also Sexton attempts to touch upon a number of very important topical issues like rascism, poverty, addiction, crime, faith, war, voter suppression, infidelity, food insecurity, and the importance of access to a good education.

Alright, people, I am done with the positive. There was almost nothing else I liked about this book. The issues listed above are uniformly treated too superficially for my tastes. There is a similar thinness to the characterizations. With 5 generations represented in a scant 226 pages, it's impossible to escape the sense that this author took on way too much at this point in her career.

The sections taking place in 2010-11 are by far the most convincing. The farther one gets from recent events, the less persuasive the story is. The Evelyn of 2010 is entirely believable but Evelyn in 1944 is not. On reflection I honestly did not get pulled in very often. Things felt artificial and designed to elicit particular responses from me rather than presented realistically enough to allow me to generate my own responses.

It seems probable that Sexton is writing about things she has heard of but not experienced first-hand. She likely knows people who have been in these situations but is herself one or more degrees of separation from them. A more seasoned writer could certainly get around this circumstance; here we have a new and inexperienced voice and I think it really shows. Rather than heeding the old admonition to "Write what you know", this writer seems to have written what she thinks she knows or - even more likely - what she recognized she should know.

For example there are myriad details regarding foods, pop music, celebrated New Orleans locales, historical events, and jingoistic turns of phrase which feel placed rather than incorporated. It's as though the author created checklists from which she could draw, at will, the colorful specifics she needed to lend authenticity to the narrative. The effort is praiseworthy but the execution is not.

I found the writing overly fussy, with flowery prose applied liberally to melodramatic situations. Phrases are often off the mark and awkward: "the palms of her feet", "grasp his attention", and "pants hanging below his drawls". And these are not found within dialogue, where voice can be liguistically and artfully incorrect; these are descriptions from the omniscient narrator.

The more I noticed these things, the worst it got. A book which would normally have taken me 3-4 days to complete required 11. And I finally lost my pediatric mind when I read this description of a newborn:

"...but Malik could fit in the palm of just one of his hands" followed sentences later by the descriptors "Twenty-two inches... Seven pounds, fifteen ounces." You might be able to carry that baby (ill-advisedly) in the palm of one sole - oops, I mean "hand" - but he will not fit. Believe me. Unless Daddy is Andre the Giant or Edward Scissorhands, no can do.

But I really do like this cover! ...more

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Feb 01, 2017 Jamie rated it it was amazing

This is a remarkable book, covering three generations of an African American family in New Orleans. In the 40s of World War II, Evelyn - well off daughter of a doctor - falls in love with a poor but striving boy and has to manage her family's expectations as well as his deployment in the war to become her own person. In the 80s, her daughter Jackie navigates how well she can trust her husband, a recovering crack addict who comes back into her life when their son is still an infant. And in the po ...more

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Nov 03, 2017 Jan rated it really liked it

A short novel given that it shows institutional racism, family relations and personal choices as they unfold over three generations in New Orleans. The characters are well drawn but the episodic structure and cross-cutting story lines tend to soften the intensity. Still, an enjoyable read, and the audiobook is very well performed by Bahni Turpin, Kevin Kenerly and Adenrele Ojo. Glad the National Book Award long list brought this book to my attention.

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Oct 06, 2017 Janani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Multi-generational family stories are my jam. I'm disappointed that this didn't make the NBA shortlist, but it is an excellent debut novel.

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Oct 01, 2018 Columbus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This New Orleans set story should’ve been at least 100 more pages. That’s both a positive and negative analysis of the book. 4 ⭐ ...more

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Sep 20, 2017 Erin Glover rated it liked it · review of another edition

The title refers to what children of slaves are born into—not complete freedom but a kind of freedom. However, the story falls short of the mark. In its depiction of three generations of a Creole family, slavery as the cause of the children’s sufferings does not always come across. Missing are clear depictions of institutional racism, mass incarceration, and other forms of prejudice throughout the story. There are a smattering of exceptions such as Renard’s treatment by whites in the military du The title refers to what children of slaves are born into—not complete freedom but a kind of freedom. However, the story falls short of the mark. In its depiction of three generations of a Creole family, slavery as the cause of the children’s sufferings does not always come across. Missing are clear depictions of institutional racism, mass incarceration, and other forms of prejudice throughout the story. There are a smattering of exceptions such as Renard’s treatment by whites in the military during the 1940’s, and a daughter’s inability to get a job after graduating from Xavier in the mid-80’s, but the book doesn’t live up to its title. Is it slavery or bad decision-making that causes the family members’ suffering? Sexton could have had more impact by discussing the influence of drugs on black communities and broaching mass incarceration.

The story begins in Louisiana in 1944. Evelyn and her younger sister Ruby are the daughters of one of the first black doctors in the state. They live in the 7th Ward, in the grandest house on the block. Evelyn is a second-year nursing student when she meets the less affluent Renard, a medical student. In this Creole town, skin color is important. Renard is “[t]oo brown for most people, but it is a nice shade of brown,” Ruby comments. He doesn't belong with the passé blancs or nearly whites he hangs with.

The story jumps forward to the fall of 1986. Evelyn and Renard have two children: Sybil and Jackie. Sybil, nine years older than Jackie, is an attorney. Jackie has a child, T.C., from Terrie, a crack addict who was valedictorian at Xavier. He comes and goes in Jackie and T.C.’s lives. Jackie gives him one last shot at getting his act together when T.C. is six months old, against Sybil and her parents’ advice.

Fast forward to the summer of 2010 and T.C. is getting out of prison because of over-population. We’re not sure what he did, but suspect it had something to do with drugs. He has a child on the way from his girlfriend.

The story line was difficult to follow due to the time jumps from the 40’s, to the 80’s to 2010. There doesn't seem to be a common thread to follow in terms of theme.

It was difficult to connect with Evelyn, the protagonist. She lacks depth. I can only say superficial things about her. I would have liked to know what was in her head when she heard how Renard was treated by the white soldiers, how she felt about her children, how she felt about her sister later in life and what happened to T.C. She was a rather limp protagonist. The narrative distance was great.

From the perspective of learning a little about Creole life for blacks in Louisiana, the novel held my interest. In showing how children of slaves are never all the way free, it failed to meet its promise. It’s too bad—the book had potential.
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“For the rest of her life, Jackie wouldn't forget that comment. She and her daddy weren't as close as they had been, and she felt a pang in her chest whenever she saw him with Sybil, but most of that jealousy was mitigated by T.C. When she had the baby, she realized how much a parent loved a child, and she assumed her father's feelings for her were at least as sturdy. Because of that perspective, all this time she had also assumed that when he asked her how she was doing, when he drove her car to the lot for oil changes, moved her furniture, stopped by unannounced, and paid her light bill, that there was nothing else in the world he'd rather be doing. In reality though he'd been building up anger with every check he signed, every mile he drove, and the last thing she wanted was a favor laced in resentment. She waited for her mam to cut in with a word that might coat the ferocity of what had just been said, but there was only silence, a heavy resolve as though Jackie were the one who needed to explain, as if she would do anything differently if the circumstances tumbled into her lap again.” — 2 likes

“He was by no means a thief, but Jackie had learned the hard way that life could drag disgrace out of you.” — 1 likes

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