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