On The Rooftop

 Margaret Wilkerson Sexton is the author of the historical fiction novel called On The Rooftop. The story is set in San Francisco in the 1950's. Vivian is a single mother of three girls. Besides working long hours at the local hospital, she rehearses her daughters in singing, sometimes they sing on the rooftop. Ruth is the oldest and the lead singer. Her younger sisters, Esther and Chloe, back her up. The group is known as The Salvations. They sing at church and at a local jazz club on weekend nights. Right when Vivian secures an agent for The Salvations, the group breaks up. Vivian's girls start to follow their own passions instead of their mother's passion. A side story in this novel is the city's way of gentrifying the black neighborhoods by right of eminent domain. The book brought me right back to the 1950's with the description of the hose and the girdles and the pencil skirts.