The Revisioners
If you enjoyed this review, please consider purchasing this book from my Amazon Associates link: https://amzn.to/3qwcGiS. The commissions I receive from your purchase help pay for the costs of running this website. Thanks for your support!
The New York Times included The Revisioners on its 100 Notable Books of 2019 list, and the review is titled “How Two Black Women a Century Apart Experience Racism”. Well, just as Michael Barbaro always nags you to do on The Daily, subscribe to The NYT because that title is spot on.
I was immediately on board with The Revisioners; there’s something about Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s writing that sucks you in. The book moves between generations of women within the same family, and I’ll admit that with the back-and-forth, I didn’t totally follow the logistics sometimes. It didn’t matter. She gives an overarching calmness to her main characters, and I felt at ease in their presence, trusting that they would deal with the conflict before them and that I would witness something profound.
Her characters follow a bloodline of female slaves who are able to channel the trail of their ancestors and sometimes foresee the power of their descendants. One of the main characters is Ava, a modern-day woman trying to find her way. I don’t usually read contemporary books and I was surprised at how refreshing it felt to see a current reference. I think maybe sometimes I undervalue the importance of explicit recognition. I owe this in part to Book People; I bought a mystery box from them and in my questionnaire, I asked for modern books. They also sent me Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs, so they are crushing it.
Bottom line: I grasped the nature of these characters pretty quickly, I cared about what happened to them, and--with a little bit of imagination as a treat-- I got to see how they fared. I invested and that investment paid off. Also, while it’s easy to get wrapped up in the subtlety of her writing, she is showing parallels between the racism that plagues her characters across centuries. We’re kidding ourselves if we think racism is a thing of the past and she reminds us-- very clearly-- that the KKK is still rearing its gross ass ugly head.
Overall, The Revisioners receives 5 out of 5 flames.
