Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9781250206220)

From 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, Alabama--the former seat of the Confederacy--as 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 a landscape today dominated not by cotton fields but 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 perspective-shifting work that is both an intimate memoir and a journalistic triumph, Okeowo investigates her life, other Alabamians' lives, and the state's lesser-known histories, to examine why Alabama has been the stage for the most extreme results of the American experiment.

Author: Alexis Okeowo
ISBN-10: 1250206227
ISBN-13: 9781250206220
Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
Language: English
Published: 08/05/2025
Pages: 272
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.25h x 5.38w x 1.00d