On the Rooftop, by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

In the 1950s, San Francisco’s Fillmore District had a large Black population, contributing to its reputation as the largest jazz scene on the West coast. Vivian sees music as the ticket to give her three daughters a better life. Ever since hearing Ruth, her oldest, astound the church with her choir solo, Vivian has been training her to become a professional singer, adding Esther and Chloe, the youngest, as they began to show interest and talent.

By the beginning of this, Sexton’s third novel, the three are performing regularly at neighborhood clubs as the Salvations. Vivian drills them relentlessly on their routines up on the roof of their apartment building, inventing warmup exercises, song arrangements and dance steps.

Having endured racial violence in Louisiana, the death of her beloved husband, and the drudgery of her own nursing job, Vivian wants more for her daughters. Now, just as the dream seems within reach, with an offer for major representation, the three young women begin to second-guess the path they’ve been following.

The joys and conflicts between three sisters are familiar from fairy tales and folklore. Some of us (me) also have personal experience of these dynamics. Sexton shifts between Vivian’s point of view and that of each of the sisters, giving us their distinct personalities and desires, as well as their complicated relationships with their mother and each other.

Further difficulties arrive with White developers, maneuvering to drive out Black residents and business owners with underhanded tactics and cash offers. Clearing out Black people in the name of “urban renewal” happened in cities across the U.S. during the mid-twentieth century. Here, not only renters like Vivian are threatened, but also the owners of the clubs, the church that is so much a part of the family’s life, and the businesses where they work.

This is not an action-packed thriller, but rather a story of family and community, how love and tensions can co-exist within them, how one generation’s dreams may or may not be relevant to the next. Even big blow-ups are treated with realism rather than melodrama. This isn’t a typical rags-to-riches drama of an artist’s life, but something more real, more important.

I mostly identified with Vivian and her concern for her children. However, I can imagine younger readers being put off by the amount of control she exercised over her daughters, trying to direct their lives down the path of her choosing. Having grown up in the 1950s and 1960s, I can attest to how common it was back then for parents to expect to make such decisions for their children.

Also, as we just saw during the Olympics, to achieve at such high levels requires dedication and hard work from an early age. This family reminded me of Venus and Serena Williams and made me consider what sacrifices they had to make. It also made me wonder about the emotional negotiations that must have taken place between their dreams and their father’s.

I enjoyed this slow burn of a story, with its focus on relationships. Vivian, the three daughters, Vivian’s best friend Mary, even the Preacher are all vivid characters with their own dreams and desires, their own flaws. I found it a gift to be part of this family and their world for a little while.

Have you read a novel by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton? What did you think of it?

The American Queen, by Vanessa Miller

I’m always thrilled to stumble across an inspiring story based on real events, a story that’s been lost to history. In 1865, the Civil War is over, but freedom has only worsened the lives of former slaves. On the Montgomery Plantation, twenty-four-year-old Louella Bobo carries the trauma of her years as a slave: her mother being sold away, her father lynched, and beatings that have scarred her back and soul.

She hates, with all her being, and cannot find room in her heart for love, even for William, the older preacher who loves her. Still, she knows he is a good man and agrees to marry him. She knows what she wants: to make real her vision of a Happy Land where people can live freely and be treated with respect. She envisions a cooperative community, where everything is shared so that all can prosper.

When events make it impossible to stay on the plantation, Louella and William lead a group of former slaves to find a place to settle and build their community. They travel for months, encountering dangers and surprising succor in the post-Civil War South, eventually settling in the Carolinas. Louella and William are appointed Queen and King of Happy Land. It thrives, growing to 500 families, but internal friction develops and threatens all they’ve built.  

Miller’s fictionalised version of this true story captures the drama of Louella’s terrible journey from hate to love. The injustice and outright abuse can be hard to read about, but will come as no surprise to anyone familiar with slavery and Reconstruction. Another aspect that can be off-putting but not unexpected for someone of the time is Louella’s devout Christianity. While no doubt historically accurate, Louella constantly excusing injustice by saying that God has His ways or hoping God would hear her need seemed to take all the air out of the story.

Luckily she often speaks her mind and finds creative ways to accomplish her goals. Such parts kept the story moving. By having Louella take the lead and speak her mind, Miller shows us a complex character. Each of the characters—and there are a lot—is fully depicted as an individual.

Given the egalitarian nature of Happy Land, I was uncomfortable with the titles of king and queen, especially since they were used as day-to-day nomenclature, i.e., referring to King William or the King and Louella likewise. Of course, this is one of the dangers of using real events for a novel. The author shouldn’t go against the actual historical record.

Having just read Erasure, a novel of how the public and the publishing industry only want and will only accept one view of The Black Experience, I appreciated this portrait of a harmonious and loving marriage as well as that of a thriving community.

The part I enjoyed most was the building of the Happy Land: how Louella managed to negotiate what they needed, the ways they found to make the money they needed, and the success of their communal sharing of all resources.

The book’s language is fairly simple; in fact, I wondered if it wasn’t a Middle Grade or Young Adult novel, though the traumatic violence rules out Middle Grade. However, it’s an easy read and an immensely valuable addition to our understanding of the time and also of what one woman can accomplish. She had a dream, and she made it come true.

What novel have you read that was based on real events?