A Kind of Freedom

Starred review from June 5, 2017
Set in Sexton’s native New Orleans, this emotionally wrenching, character-rich debut spans three generations in a city deeply impacted by segregation, economic inequality, and racial tensions. It begins with a 1940s romance between Evelyn, the eldest daughter in a relatively well-off Creole family, and Renard, the son of a janitor, whose dreams are bigger than his station in life can hold. Their daughter, Jackie, becomes a mother in the Reagan-era 1980s, struggling through the economic downturn that derails her husband’s promising career and starts him on a tumultuous path of addiction and empty promises. Their grandson, T.C., lives through the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, watching it transform his city—and himself—into something unfamiliar. Yet when his ambitions falter, he braces himself with the need to be present in his newborn son’s life in the way his father never was. 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. Agent: Michael Carlisle, Inkwell Management.

June 1, 2017
A multigenerational exploration of systemic racism in America.Evelyn is 22 and studying to be a nurse. Her family is well-known in New Orleans' 7th Ward. Her mother is a beautiful Creole woman. Her father's distinctly African features are offset by the fact that he's a doctor. It's 1944, and Evelyn, her family, and her peers are unabashed in their colorism. Evelyn and her sister, Ruby, assess men and other women by the lightness of their skin and the natural straightness of their hair. Among other Negroes--the preferred term in this time and place--Evelyn's appearance and relative wealth shield her from some of the harsh realities of the Jim Crow South. But what privilege she enjoys becomes an impediment when she falls in love with a man with no money and no family. Over the course of the novel, Sexton follows Evelyn, her daughter, Jackie, and her grandson, T.C., as they negotiate the realities of race and class in the United States. Jackie loses her husband--and her solidly middle-class life--to the crack epidemic of the 1980s. T.C. starts dealing weed after the world he knows is destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Some of the dilemmas these characters face would have been--and will be--recognizable to many African-Americans. For example, Evelyn's beau (and, eventually, her husband) doesn't want to risk his life fighting for a country in which he is not a full citizen. And, even though Jackie knows the devastating impact of crack firsthand, she also recognizes that the war on drugs has a disproportionate impact on black people. Some of the nuances are particular to New Orleans--which has a distinct and complicated history with regard to race--but Sexton's choice of this unique setting is effective, too. There aren't many places in the country where three generations can take an African-American family from life in an established, upper-middle-class enclave to a hand-to-mouth existence in public housing. Sexton's debut novel shows us that hard work does not guarantee success and that progress doesn't always move in a straight line. A well-crafted--and altogether timely--first novel.

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July 1, 2017
Evelyn, Jackie, and T. C. are complex and authentic generations of a New Orleans family. The novel's title captures reality for all three: free people trying to exercise free will while the webbing of race and class prevents them from finding free opportunity. In the 1940s, Evelyn's family is among the most successful African Americans in town, and her love for Renard, son of a janitor, causes them legitimate concern. In the 1980s, Jackie, Evelyn's daughter and herself a new mom, attempts to reconcile with her husband, Terry, whose crack addiction was born in part by his less-than status among his white peers. In the 2010s, Jackie's son, T. C., is released from prison and must find a way to provide for his own newborn son. Sexton's characters share the traits of kindness and struggle, and her first novel disavows any notion that prejudice is history: perhaps changed in form, it is still passed along with the generations. This novel sparked a competition among literary agents, and for good reason. This family is worth every minute of a reader's time.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)