A review by kansas_girl
Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South by Margaret Renkl

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.0

 

 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.