margaret wilkerson sexton on the rooftop

Warm, gripping, and wise, with echoes of Fiddler on the Roof, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s latest novel is a moving family portrait from “a writer of uncommon nerve and talent” (New York Times Book Review). And Vivian, who has always maintained control, will have to confront the parts of her life that threaten to splinter: the community, The Salvations, and even her family. One sister finds herself called to fight back, one falls into the comfort of an old relationship, another yearns to make her own voice heard.

The neighborhood is changing, too: all around the Fillmore, white men in suits are approaching Black property owners with offers. But sometime between the hours of rehearsal on their rooftop and the weekly gigs at the Champagne Supper Club, the girls have become women, women with dreams that their mother cannot imagine. Vivian knows this is the big break she’s been praying for. Now Vivian has scored a once-in-a-lifetime offer from a talent manager, who promises to catapult The Salvations into the national spotlight. Thanks to the rigorous direction of their mother, Vivian, they’ve become a bona fide girl group whose shows are the talk of the Jazz-era Fillmore. Ruth, Esther, and Chloe have been singing and dancing in harmony since they could speak. A stunning novel about a mother whose dream of musical stardom for her three daughters collides with the daughters’ ambitions for their own lives-set against the backdrop of gentrifying 1950s San FranciscoĪt home they are just sisters, but on stage, they are The Salvations.

Margaret wilkerson sexton on the rooftop