Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South
English
By (author): Margaret Renkl
Winner of the Southern Book Prize
Winner of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay
From the author of the bestselling #ReadWithJenna/TODAY Show book club pick Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love and Loss
For the past four years, Margaret Renkls columns have offered readers of The New York Times a weekly dose of natural beauty, human decency, and persistent hope from her home in Nashville. Now more than sixty of those pieces have been brought together in this sparkling new collection.
People have often asked me how it feels to be the voice of the South, writes Renkl in her introduction. But Im not the voice of the South, and no one else is, either. There are many Southsred and blue, rural and urban, mountain and coast, Black and white and brownand no one writer could possibly represent all of them. In Graceland, At Last, Renkl writes instead from her own experience about the complexities of her homeland, demonstrating along the way how much more there is to this tangled region than many people understand.
In a patchwork quilt of personal and reported essays, Renkl also highlights some other voices of the South, people who are fighting for a better future for the region. A group of teenagers who organized a youth march for Black Lives Matter. An urban shepherd whose sheep remove invasive vegetation. Church parishioners sheltering the homeless. Throughout, readers will find the generosity of spirit and deep attention to the world, human and nonhuman, that keep readers returning to her columns each Monday morning.
From a writer who makes one of all the worlds beings (NPR), Graceland, At Last is a book full of gifts for Southerners and non-Southerners alike.
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