Take a photo of a barcode or cover
88 reviews for:
Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South
Margaret Renkl
4.2 AVERAGE
88 reviews for:
Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South
Margaret Renkl
4.2 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
If you've ever held a cast-iron skillet, admired butterflies dancing above wildflowers on the side of a road, or enjoyed the company of songbirds in the trees around your backyard, read this book. If you've ever scoffed as a response to red-dappled electoral maps, brushed off southern states as deserving of climate disasters just because of their Republican representatives, or thought only of state schools and rural hometowns as somewhere you "end up" rather than choose, please, please read this book. Margaret Renkl speaks with the clarity and distinction of a journalist and the heart and spirit of a Southern woman in love with her home, her family, and her people, and every hitch, bruise, scrape, spot of light, old recipe, and humid afternoon that comes along.
If you've lived in the South, these essays will remind you of the conflicting relationships that can outline an existance in a place of community and hospitality, as well as stubborn old ways and traditional modes of thinking. If you've never set foot in the south, out of the city, or, worse, have qualms against doing so, this book will open your eyes to the complexities of a region too often painted with too broad and too nasty of a brush. There is nothing more I can say about it that Renkl does not say in far more poetic words, in far more punching lines. Each essay touches on a new topic, and each essay begins and ends the same: with a gentle invitation, and an often tear-jerking closing statement. One such line sums up the book with the grace, pride, recognition, and hope that stitch together the intricately beautiful quilt squares of this collection: "Maybe being a Southern writer is only a matter of loving a damaged and damaging place, of living its flawed and beautiful people, so much that you have to stay there, observing and recording and believing, against all odds, that one day it will finally live up to the promise of its own good heart."
If you've lived in the South, these essays will remind you of the conflicting relationships that can outline an existance in a place of community and hospitality, as well as stubborn old ways and traditional modes of thinking. If you've never set foot in the south, out of the city, or, worse, have qualms against doing so, this book will open your eyes to the complexities of a region too often painted with too broad and too nasty of a brush. There is nothing more I can say about it that Renkl does not say in far more poetic words, in far more punching lines. Each essay touches on a new topic, and each essay begins and ends the same: with a gentle invitation, and an often tear-jerking closing statement. One such line sums up the book with the grace, pride, recognition, and hope that stitch together the intricately beautiful quilt squares of this collection: "Maybe being a Southern writer is only a matter of loving a damaged and damaging place, of living its flawed and beautiful people, so much that you have to stay there, observing and recording and believing, against all odds, that one day it will finally live up to the promise of its own good heart."
I couldn’t love this book more. I felt less alone. The last line of the book sums it up for me: “Maybe being a Southern writer is only a matter of loving a damaged and damaging place, of loving its flawed and beautiful people, so much that you have to stay there, observing and recording and believing, against all odds, that one day it will finally live up to the promise of its own good heart.”
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
I was excited for this as an answer to J.D. Vance's reign of terror over Appalachian perspectives, but the introduction immediately set my teeth on edge. How are you ever going to potentially influence someone's opinion if you disparage them and imply idiocy for disagreeing with you? A NYT columnist should know better.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Graceland, At Last is Margaret Renkl’s collection of columns from the New York Times. She has assembled a wide range of columns considering everything from birds to country music to social justice. Renkl is a writer who throws her whole self into her observations. She is not outside her written experiences whether it is about her visceral reactions to representations of racism in America, or her kindred response to the mole in her yard, “trundling through invisible tunnels in the dark. . .working so hard to move forward. . . .” Her observations on the American experience are hard to take sometimes. She pulls no punches about American failures in race relations, care of the environment, and political life. Yet, she is also a writer full of the wonder about the world, seeing and helping us to see the hope and possibility in humanity.
adventurous
emotional
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
medium-paced
The essays are not anything brand new but they are beautifully written in a way that makes them timeless.
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
informative
medium-paced