March 7, 2024

There is something so satisfying about reading all the books written by an author, but at the same time it can leave the reader yearning for another one and hoping there will, in fact, be another one.

The first book I read this year was Margaret Renkl’s most recent book, The Comfort of Crows, A Backyard Year, and I loved it. Wondrous, lovely prose and gorgeous illustrations by her artist brother. (See my review, https://wordpress.com/post/livingonlifeslabyrinth.com/3083) In 2022 I read her first book, Late Migrations, A Natural History of Love and Loss, which also is illustrated by Billy Renkl. In that book of essays, her preferred style, she moves back and forth between essays observing nature mainly in Alabama and Tennessee and essays about her family. Sometimes the essay is a list, such as “Things I Didn’t Know When I Was Six.”

Graceland At Last, Notes on Hope and Heartache From the American South is Renkl’s second book and is a collection of 60 essays published in the New York Times in the years 2017-2020, and yes, this brought forth many memories and realities from those years: Trump, COVID, climate change, and more. Issues that continue to plague us. Renkl lives in Nashville and grew up in Alabama.(I wonder what she would say about the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling about embryos. I think I know, but I would value reading her words, for her writing is always clear.) and I appreciate the perspective she gives about an area of the country somewhat foreign to this Midwestern woman.

The book is divided into six sections: Flora and Fauna, Politics and Religion, Social Justice, Environment, Family and Community, Arts and Culture. The best way to explain the scope of her writing, as well as her writing style is to share some quotations:

Bald eagles typically mate for life, and each pair frequently uses the same nest again and again, adding a new layer of branches and sticks each year. A bald eagle nest can weigh more than two tons. From a distance, it looks as though someone has hauled a Ford Explorer into the sky and lodged it in the fork of a tree.

“The Eagles of Reelfoot Lake, (February 28, 2019), p. 22

Partly this divide comes down to scale: you can love a human being and still fear the group that person belongs to. A friend of mine recently joined a continuing-ed class made up about equally of native-born Americans and immigrants. The two groups integrate seamlessly, joking around like any co-workers, but the day after the election my friend said, “I think half my class might ‘ve just voted to deport the other half.”

“The Passion of Southern Christians,” (April 8, 2017), p.83

Changing our relationship to our yards is simple: just don’t spray. Let the wildflowers take root within the grass. Use an oscillating fan to keep the mosquitoes away. Tug the weeds out of the flower bed with your own hands and feel the benefit of a natural antidepressant at the same time. Trust the natural world to perform its own insect control, and watch the songbirds and the tree frogs and the box turtles and the friendly garter snakes return to their homes among us.

“America’s Killer Lawns,” (May 18, 2020), p. 157.

A condolence letter is a gift to the recipient, but it’s a gift to the writer, too. Remembering someone you loved is a way of remembering who you were, a way of linking your own past and present. Even when you love only the survivor–even if you hardly knew, or never met, the mourned beloved–you know something crucial: you know that person had a hand in creating someone you love. A condolence letter confirms the necessity of connection, one human heart to another. It’s a way of saying, “We belong to one another.”

“The Gift of Shared Grief,” (February 4, 2019), p. 211

One of the reasons this book resonated with me was that it recharged memories of the Civil Rights Tour my husband and I and other members of our congregation took the fall of 2018. Renkl writes eloquently about some of the places we visited on the tour. If you read only one essay in this collection, read “Middle Passage to Mass Incarceration,” pp. 129-132.

I checked Renkl’s website to see if another book is forthcoming, and nothing is mentioned. Nancy, give her a break, I tell myself, for Comfort of Crows was only released in 2023. I do not doubt she is observing and reflecting and gardening and writing, however, and when another new book is published, I will read it.

An Invitation

Do you ever read collections of essays? Any recommendations?