Graceland, At Last - Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South

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 Renkl’s 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 I’m not the voice of the South, and no one else is, either.” There are many Souths—red and blue, rural and urban, mountain and coast, Black and white and brown—and 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 world’s beings” (NPR), Graceland, At Last is a book full of gifts for Southerners and non-Southerners alike.

Introduction

Flora & Fauna
Hawk. Lizard. Mole. Human.
The Flower That Came Back from the Dead
The Eagles of Reelfoot Lake
The Real Aliens in Our Backyard
Make America Graze Again
The Misunderstood, Maligned Rattlesnake
Making Way for Monarchs
The Call of the American Lotus

Politics & Religion
A Monument the Old South Would Like to Ignore
The Final Battleground in the Fight for Suffrage
The Hits Keep Coming for the Red-State Poor
A Slow-Motion Coup in Tennessee
We’re All Addicts Here
There Is a Middle Ground on Guns
An American Tragedy
The Passion of Southern Christians
Christians Need a New Right-to-Life Movement
Shame and Salvation in the American South
Going to Church with Jimmy Carter

Social Justice
What Is America to Me?
ICE Came to Take Their Neighbor. They Said No.
Christmas Isn’t Coming to Death Row
An Act of Mercy in Tennessee
An Open Letter to My Fellow White Christians
Looking Our Racist History in the Eye
Middle Passage to Mass Incarceration
In Memphis, Journalism Can Still Bring Justice
An Open Letter to John Lewis
Reading the New South
These Kids Are Done Waiting for Change

Environment
America’s Killer Lawns
Dangerous Waters
More Trees, Happier People
I Have a Cure for the Dog Days of Summer
The Case against Doing Nothing
The Fox in the Stroller
Death of a Cat
A 150,000-Bird Orchestra in the Sky

Family & Community
Waking Up to History
Why I Wear Five Wedding Rings
Demolition Blues
The Gift of Shared Grief
Remembrance of Recipes Past
All the Empty Seats at the Table
What It Means to Be #NashvilleStrong
The Night the Lights Went Out
The Story of the Surly Santa and the Christmas Miracle
True Love in the Age of Coronavirus

Arts & Culture

Keep America’s Roadside Weird
Country Music as Melting Pot
John Prine: American Oracle
So Long to Music City’s Favorite Soap Opera
“Beauty Herself Is Black”
The Day the Music Died
After War, Three Chords and the Truth
Proud Graduate of State U.
What Is a Southern Writer, Anyway?
Graceland, At Last

Acknowledgments