Margaret Wilkerson Sexton: Author of "The Revisioners" Discusses Oppressive Racial Dynamics and Family Loyalty in Her New Novel
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s latest novel, The Revisioners, explores a New Orleans family’s ascent from slavery to freedom and the subtle yet dangerous racial divide that stretches through the generations. In alternating chapters, shifting from past to present, we hear from Ava, a mixed-race single mom struggling to establish a career and raise a teenage son in 2017, and then Josephine, Ava’s great-great-grandmother, a former slave who proudly runs the family farm in 1924. The story begins when Ava becomes a caregiver for her paternal, wealthy white grandmother, Martha, whose growing dementia creates disturbing behavior, stirring up generational trauma and racism. In the past, Josephine, who is gifted with a mystical power of second sight, is dealing with managing the family farm in the midst of run-ins with the Klan.
Sexton’s gift for storytelling sparkles throughout this novel as the chilling plot unfolds, revealing a powerful story of hope and the strength of family, across multiple generations. I was very fortunate to speak with Margaret about The Revisioners, family loyalty, oppressive racial dynamics, the women in her life that inspired some of her fictional characters, the 2016 election, and her writing process.
First, I’d love to know what sparked the idea for this story.
I got the idea for this book in 2005. I had moved to the Dominican Republic with my then boyfriend, now husband, who happened to be white. Through my husband, even then, I was forming closer relationships with white people than I had in the past, and I began to wonder how the history of the country seeped into those relationships on an invisible level. I knew at that time that often when I was interacting with most whites, race was at the forefront of my mind. The racial dynamics at the root of the country would haunt me. We know how history repeats itself in concrete ways, but I got an idea to explore how that history affects present-day dynamics unconsciously. So Ava, a biracial woman, is interacting with her white grandmother and old oppressive racial dynamics resurface. Slowly, the reader begins to understand that there’s a reason for that.
Matriarchy and female relationships are at the forefront of The Revisioners, both in the past and present. Ava, Gladys, and Josephine are such loyal and strong women, expressing fierce love for their families and friends. Did you grow up with a lot of women in your life? Are any characters in the book inspired by or based on people you know?
Those women remind me most of the women on my dad’s side of the family, The Millers. The Millers are a strong group in general, but it is my experience of the family’s women that I pulled on for this book. I’ve never met my great grandmother for whom I’m named, Margaret Radford Miller, but I have heard all my life that she was ahead of her time, that she was powerful, that she instilled in all of her 12 children the need for education. Josephine reminds me so very thoroughly of her, and it wasn’t a conscious choice. I didn’t seek out writing a book about my great grandmother but when I read Josephine’s sections now, I imagine that might have been what Margaret Miller was like. I have her descendants, my grandmother, and aunts, and cousins, whom I do know, as further evidence. Their unbreakable bonds with family, their strength, and their faith, are anchors for me.
This book explores the traditions Black women have passed down to one another, particularity within the realm of spirituality. As a child, Josephine witnesses and experiences within herself the channeling of powers, the magical connection to intuition and the ability to heal. As an adult, we see that she has harnessed her own powers and has been a healer and a doula among her community. Later, we see this spirituality within Gladys as she helps young mothers about to give birth. Would you say there are elements of magical realism within the novel, or do you think women really did (or still do) possess this type of power and ability to heal?
This is such an interesting question. Another interviewer asked me this, and we had a great conversation about who sets the standard for what’s supernatural or non-realistic. I recognize that the more spiritual aspects of the storyline will read as magical realism or even speculative fiction but I have seen elements of this healing, creative and psychic power throughout my life.
Family history and lineage is so important in this story. Do you think our personal histories and heritages are important for us to learn in order to understand ourselves better? Do you know much about your own?
I don’t know nearly as much about my heritage as I would like to but I think if I did, I would find ancestors who were the prototypes for behaviors and characteristics I find unique to myself. I believe history repeats itself and I believe patterns of behavior within families repeat themselves and they may all look different because the face of the world will shift, but beneath it all the actual tendency is the same. For instance, my great grandmother, Margaret, was apparently a great orator in her church. This would have been in the early part of the 20th century. The only opportunity for her to have a public voice would have been through her small church in Solitude, Louisiana. Now, I travel the country talking about the themes I cover in my books. It may look different, but it’s actually the same talent and inclination.
This book explores racism and the dangers of white privilege and white supremacy, both in the past and in the present. Did you write with this story with a sense of urgency, given the current US social climate under the Trump administration? What do you hope readers take away from The Revisioners?
The 2016 election was definitely top of mind as I wrote The Revisioners, particularly the discrepancy between white women and black women voters. That divide isn’t new though, and we’re at a point in society now where white women need to understand and atone for the historical factors that are at the root of that divide, for example, the degree to which white women in history have sided with white men at black women’s expense, the degree to which black women have been excluded from the feminist movement. Now here we are and over 50% of white women voted for a man who was openly racist and misogynistic throughout his campaign. I want readers to know that we can’t begin to understand that outcome, we can’t begin to facilitate a transformation, a reconciliation, without addressing the history behind that choice.
What drew you to writing? Can you speak about your writing journey?
I always wanted to be a writer. In high school, I wrote a book for an independent study project my junior year, and in college I majored in creative writing, but as I got closer to graduation, I started to think it might not be practical and after a year of trying to work on a book in the Dominican Republic, I decided to go to law school. Then, fast forward five years, the law firm I was working at was on the verge of bankruptcy. They offered an incentive program for associates to leave for a year and take a portion of their salary. I left and worked on the book I’d started in the DR for a year. After the year, I was nowhere near complete, and the book never ended up getting published, but what I learned was, I could commit to the writing lifestyle, that it made me happy, and that I would follow that path wherever it led me.
What did your writing process look like for this novel? Did you have to do a lot of research for Josephine’s story? If so, what did that look like?
I originally wanted to tell the story in two parts, the part that would take place during slavery, and the part that would take place in contemporary time. But I kept getting visions of this woman who lived on a farm. I didn’t know anything about a farm so I just wrote her story fairly vaguely at first, then I went back and heavily researched and filled in the details of what her day to day life would have looked like. I still didn’t know how to fit her in though. Then finally I realized she was a former enslaved woman and began to incorporate that earlier part of her life through backstory. The details of her life as enslaved in New Orleans and the details of her escape also required a great deal of research.
MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. She was a recipient of the Lombard Fellowship and spent a year in the Dominican Republic working for a civil rights organization and writing. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award, and her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in The New York Times Book Review, Oprah.com, Lenny Letter, The Massachusetts Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, and other publications. She lives in the Bay Area, California, with her family.
