Description
Book SynopsisFrom a New Yorker staff writer and PEN Award winner, a blend of memoir, history, and reportage on one of the most complex and least understood states in America.
In Alabama, we exist at the border of blessing and disaster.
Alexis Okeowo grew up in Montgomery, Alabamathe former seat of the Confederacyas the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Here, she weaves her family's story with her state's, from Alabama's forced removal of the Creek nation, making room for enslaved West Africans, to present-day legislative battles for evolution disclaimers in biology textbooks. She immerses us in the landscape, no longer one of cotton fields but rather one dominated by auto plants and Amazon warehouses. Defying stereotypes at every turn, Okeowo shows how people can love their home while still acknowledging its sins.
In this emotional, perspective-shifting work that is both a memoir and a journalistic triumph, Okeowo investigates her life, other Alabamians' lives,
