The chapters of Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's second novel, The Revisioners, alternate between three timelines. In present-day Louisiana, 34-year-old Ava Jackson and her 12-year-old son King move in with Ava's wealthy grandmother, Martha, who is suffering from health problems and needs help around the house. Ava is mixed race, and Martha is the mother of her (largely absent) white father. Ava hopes this arrangement will allow her to save up enough money to buy her own home, but her Black mother Gladys tells her she shouldn't trust Martha. Gladys feels Martha was cold to her throughout her marriage to Ava's dad, and she believes her disfavor was racially motivated. Meanwhile, in 1924, Ava's great-great-great grandmother Josephine has worked her way up in life; born a slave she later became a sharecropper and now owns her own farm, which is managed by her son Major. A white couple moves in ...