Graceland, At Last

“Margaret Renkl’s weekly essays for the New York Times offer a model for how to move through our world with insight and sensitivity. Graceland, At Last: Notes on Hope and Heartbreak from the American South takes in the full scope of her surroundings, and the reader walks away wanting to see as she sees, hear what she hears, smell what she smells. It’s a stellar collection that spans nature writing and cultural criticism, the present and the past, full of explorations of religion, belief, and Southern politics that flex a cordial, probing curiosity. She picks good heroes—John Lewis, John Prine, ‘the lowly Tennessee coneflower’—and she makes sharp judgments without sounding judgmental. At a moment of extreme division, Renkl writes with a generosity of spirit, as a neighbor rather than ideologue.”

“[Graceland, at Last] is Renkl at her most tender and most fierce … Renkl’s gift, just as it was in her first book Late Migrations, is to make fascinating for others what is closest to her heart … What rises in me after reading her essays is [John] Lewis’ famous urging to get in good trouble to make the world fairer and better. Many people in the South are doing just that — and through her beautiful writing, Renkl is among them.”

“In this luminous collection, Margaret Renkl delivers smart, beautifully crafted personal and political observations … I keep this book nearby to revisit the humanity and hope in its pages.”

“Amazing and inspiring. [Graceland, At Last] will help you figure out concrete things you can do to save the planet.”

“If you’ve happened upon the poignant and off-road opinion pieces Renkl writes as a contributor to The New York Times, you already know that the natural world is something she closely observes and uses as a springboard to contemplate other, less tangible subjects… . Her life story and her life’s passion intertwine, like a fence post and a trumpet vine.”

“Everyone should have a friend like Margaret Renkl: thoughtful, engaged, compassionate and, above all, acutely observant. Since that’s not always possible, the next best thing is to share her company in the diverse and consistently stimulating essay collection Graceland, at Last … Renkl is both unfailingly honest and deeply empathetic in creating the vivid portrait of her home region that emerges organically from these intensely personal and well-informed essays.”

“Graceland, At Last gathers a selection of Renkl’s columns from the past four years, inviting loyal readers and newcomers alike to take in Renkl’s perspective on the world … Whether extolling the wonders of a rattlesnake or lamenting Southern Christians’ support of oppressive policies, Renkl engages with her home region’s beauty and complexity.”

“Graceland, At Last takes us to Renkl’s homeland and shines a light on life in the South, its complexities and its hopes. In these pages, you will find Black Lives Matter organizers, churches sheltering the homeless, and even helpful sheep. Reading Margaret Renkl is like seeing the world in color for the first time.”

“Like nothing else in the newspaper, [Renkl’s columns] burst with awareness of the things of nature, awareness that our lives are led in that midst, permeated with and part of the natural world. All is written with an open, joyful, yet steady voice of wonder.”

“From her home in Nashville—’a blue dot in the red sea of Tennessee’—[Renkl] writes perceptively of the region where she was born and raised (in Alabama), educated (in South Carolina), and settled … Renkl vividly evokes the lush natural beauty of the rivers, old-growth forests, ‘red-dirt pineywoods,’ marshes, and coastal plains that she deeply loves … A wide-ranging look at the realities of the South.”

“New York Times columnist Renkl effectively lifts the lid on Southern culture and challenges its stereotypes in this versatile compendium. Renkl’s essays cover the natural world, local politics, Southern-fried art and culture, and social justice issues from a Nashvillian perspective. Her nature writing shows an impressive predilection for botany and ornithology … [Graceland, At Last] serves as a well-written collection for anyone interested in everyday life below the Mason-Dixon Line.”

“Renkl is a frequent op-ed writer for The New York Times, where she captures the spirit and contemporary culture of the American South better than anyone.”

“Margaret Renkl’s essays alternate between balm for the soul and outrage at the world with all of its injustices. She makes me think and see things in a different light and for that I’m eternally grateful.”

“In 1956, author E.B. White suggested that newspapers cover nature as eagerly as commerce, having columns devoted not only to the flow of business but also the arrival of birds. Renkl … seems like a belated answer to White … [crafting] graceful sentences that White would surely have enjoyed. A collection of her Times columns would be a welcome thing.”

“Margaret Renkl’s perspective feels like a guiding light … No matter where you’re from, column after column, Margaret Renkl will make you feel right at home.”

“[Renkl] doesn’t shy from hard topics but explores them with the careful hand of someone whose heart yearns for healing, growth, and understanding for the region she loves. A must read for those who live and love the South!”

“Reading the short essays in this book has strengthened my understanding and love for the South, its people, its land, and its complexities. I especially have enjoyed reading Renkl’s thoughtful reflections on flora and fauna, and I find myself looking to my changing backyard this fall with a new appreciation.”

“Readers can easily home in on one of the book’s wide-ranging six sections, sample an essay or two from each, or barrel through from start to finish, as whim dictates. Renkl’s voice is calm, steady, and sometimes surprising … She celebrates a host of new voices in southern writing and sees in their work the light of justice and hope for the South.”

“As the essays collected in Graceland, At Last prove, she’s challenged her readers to rise and confront many of the complex issues facing our Southern communities … Renkl, an Alabama native and lifelong Southerner living in Nashville, does so with such deep respect and understanding, and such powerful, insightful, Southern-accented prose, that even her polemics come off as love letters … We catch glimpses of ourselves in her wise and poignant reflections, and I for one am grateful and grinning.”

“In her newest book, Graceland, At Last, Margaret Renkl invites readers—southerners and non-southerners alike—into her homeland, her city, her yard … What we discover along the way is a place that is both ‘damaged and damaging,’ but also full of people who inspire and landscapes too beautiful for words. Through these warm and heartfelt essays, Renkl shows us how to keep on loving this complicated place, how to look right at its ‘appalling truths’ and gesture, still, toward hope.”

“While [Graceland, at Last] is not a how-to, we come away with how to better ‘belong to one another’ in a time when we desperately need to.”

“It’s heartening to see a columnist for a major American newspaper writing regularly about nature with a passion the media’s chattering classes typically reserve only for politics and entertainment … Renkl’s columns deserve to be read again, and for years to come.”

“Renkl is so likable, as a writer and an individual, with her rich family traditions, her concern for justice, and her observant and unsentimental love of nature, that every paragraph feels like a conversation with a friend.”

“Renkl is a master prose stylist, her generation’s E.B. White. Whatever she writes about comes alive through carefully crafted sentences in which sound and sense harmonize at the highest levels.”

“Downing’s elegant, engaging memoir will have particular significance to readers from the Caribbean diaspora, but it will be understood by any reader who has ever had their world suddenly upended and needed to make it whole again.”

“Margaret Renkl is one of my absolute favorite writers working today. Like Late Migrations before it, Graceland, At Last is a gift—full of sorrow, joy, grief, and yes—hope. I implore you to read her work.”

“Margaret Renkl is my favorite essayist. Every week I look for her column in the opinion pages of the New York Times. In a time when the country has such deep divisions, I can rely on her writing to be all heart, no snark. I’m so proud to have this fellow Nashvillian’s newest collection on my shelf.”

“Margaret Renkl wrote a favorite book of mine, Late Migrations, which was published in 2019. In this collection of essays, she expands upon what being a Southerner means to her, and not surprisingly I loved it. She writes about nature, her Christian faith, politics, systemic racism, musicians, and a variety of cultural influencers that are a rich variety of her reflections being raised in Alabama and as an adult living in Nashville. Through it all she searches with compassion and empathy for common ground so that all people can aspire to and live a better life.”

“The only thing better than a Margaret Renkl column appearing in my paper in the morning, is a book of columns that appears all at once! Margaret’s grace of language, heart-filled societal goals and appreciation for the natural world fill this collection and give readers ideas, poignant facts to think about, and hope.”

“It’s one thing to be a good reporter. Another to be a good writer. And finally, and more rare, a good storyteller. Margaret Renkl is among our best at all three. To see her full powers on display in this collection is truly a gift. We are in a golden age of nonfiction, I feel, and Renkl is one of the brightest reasons why. I love this book.”

“With the same profound observation and sensitivity as in her first book, Margaret Renkl’s collection of newspaper columns in Graceland, At Last explores even more aspects of the current American South, going beyond stereotypes and caricatures to reveal the real people, plants, and animals that live there, and how they band together during the dark times of the last few years. From social justice to family recipes, these short columns illuminate all manner of hidden things that often go overlooked.”

“It’s a gut punch in the gut and a balm for the soul. Graceland, At Last is Margaret Renkl’s collection of essays from the New York Times, and 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 … 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.”

“Margaret Renkl’s weekly New York Times columns about culture in the South call out our many failures while describing in beautiful details what makes our part of America so beautiful. Just when I think there’s no possible way to capture the tension between the terrible and the special, Renkl’s words are there to express what I am feeling.”

“Margaret Renkl is terrific. I loved dipping in and out of these essays.”