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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.
Praise for Graceland, At Last
"[Graceland, At Last] is Renkl at her most tender and most fierce . . . Renkl's gift, just as it was in her first book Late Migrations, is to make fascinating for others what is closest to her heart . . . What rises in me after reading her essays is [John] Lewis' famous urging to get in good trouble to make the world fairer and better. Many people in the South are doing just that—and through her beautiful writing, Renkl is among them." —NPR
"In this luminous collection, Margaret Renkl delivers smart, beautifully crafted personal and political observations . . . I keep this book nearby to revisit the humanity and hope in its pages." —Minneapolis Star Tribune
"Amazing and inspiring. [Graceland, At Last] will help you figure out concrete things you can do to save the planet." —Ann Patchett
"Reading the short essays in this book has strengthened my understanding and love for the South, its people, its land, and its complexities. I especially have enjoyed reading Renkl's thoughtful reflections on flora and fauna, and I find myself looking to my changing backyard this fall with a new appreciation." —Garden & Gun
"[Renkl] doesn't shy from hard topics but explores them with the careful hand of someone whose heart yearns for healing, growth, and understanding for the region she loves. A must read for those who live and love the South!" —Country Living
"Readers can easily home in on one of the book's wide-ranging six sections, sample an essay or two from each, or barrel through from start to finish, as whim dictates. Renkl's voice is calm, steady and sometimes surprising . . . She celebrates a host of new voices in southern writing and sees in their world the light of justice and hope for the South." —Booklist
"From her home in Nashville—'a blue dot in the red sea of Tennessee'—[Renkl] writes perceptively of the region where she was born and raised (in Alabama), educated (in South Carolina), and settled . . . Renkl vividly evokes the lush natural beauty of the rivers, old-growth forests, 'red-dirt pineywoods,' marshes, and coastal plains that she deeply loves . . . A wide-ranging look at the realities of the South." —Kirkus Reviews“If you’ve happened upon the poignant and off-road opinion pieces Renkl writes as a contributor to The New York Times, you already know that the natural world is something she closely observes and uses as a springboard to contemplate other, less tangible subjects. . . . Her life story and her life’s passion intertwine, like a fence post and a trumpet vine.”—Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air
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