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.

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