Graceland, At Last

Margaret Renkl is the author of Graceland, At Last and Late Migrations, which was a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show book club selection. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, where her essays appear weekly. Her work has also appeared in Guernica, Literary Hub, Proximity, and River Teeth, among others. She was the founding editor of Chapter 16, the daily literary publication of Humanities Tennessee, and is a graduate of Auburn University and the University of South Carolina. She lives in Nashville.

Winner of the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the EssayWinner of the 2022 Southern Book PrizeAn Indie Next Selection for September 2021A Book Marks Best Reviewed Essay Collection of 2021A Literary Hub Most Anticipated Book of 2021A Country Living Best Book of Fall 2021A Garden & Gun Recommended Read for Fall 2021A Book Marks Best Reviewed Book of September 2021For 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.

IntroductionFlora & FaunaHawk. Lizard. Mole. Human.The Flower That Came Back from the DeadThe Eagles of Reelfoot LakeThe Real Aliens in Our BackyardMake America Graze AgainThe Misunderstood, Maligned RattlesnakeMaking Way for MonarchsThe Call of the American LotusPolitics & ReligionA Monument the Old South Would Like to IgnoreThe Final Battleground in the Fight for SuffrageThe Hits Keep Coming for the Red-State PoorA Slow-Motion Coup in TennesseeWe’re All Addicts HereThere Is a Middle Ground on GunsAn American TragedyThe Passion of Southern ChristiansChristians Need a New Right-to-Life MovementShame and Salvation in the American SouthGoing to Church with Jimmy CarterSocial JusticeWhat Is America to Me?ICE Came to Take Their Neighbor. They Said No.Christmas Isn’t Coming to Death RowAn Act of Mercy in TennesseeAn Open Letter to My Fellow White ChristiansLooking Our Racist History in the EyeMiddle Passage to Mass IncarcerationIn Memphis, Journalism Can Still Bring JusticeAn Open Letter to John LewisReading the New SouthThese Kids Are Done Waiting for ChangeEnvironmentAmerica’s Killer LawnsDangerous WatersMore Trees, Happier PeopleI Have a Cure for the Dog Days of SummerThe Case against Doing NothingThe Fox in the StrollerDeath of a CatA 150,000-Bird Orchestra in the SkyFamily & CommunityWaking Up to HistoryWhy I Wear Five Wedding RingsDemolition BluesThe Gift of Shared GriefRemembrance of Recipes PastAll the Empty Seats at the TableWhat It Means to Be #NashvilleStrongThe Night the Lights Went OutThe Story of the Surly Santa and the Christmas MiracleTrue Love in the Age of CoronavirusArts & CultureKeep America’s Roadside WeirdCountry Music as Melting PotJohn Prine: American OracleSo Long to Music City’s Favorite Soap Opera“Beauty Herself Is Black”The Day the Music DiedAfter War, Three Chords and the TruthProud Graduate of State U.What Is a Southern Writer, Anyway?Graceland, At LastAcknowledgments