The Home Place
Memoirs of A Colored Man's Love Affair With Nature
Book Club Kit - 2016
From the fertile soils of love, land, identity, family, and race emerges The Home Place , a big-hearted, unforgettable memoir by ornithologist J. Drew Lanham.
Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina--a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else"--has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place , readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity."
By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South--and in America today.
Dating back to slavery, Edgefield County, South Carolina--a place "easy to pass by on the way somewhere else"--has been home to generations of Lanhams. In The Home Place , readers meet these extraordinary people, including Drew himself, who over the course of the 1970s falls in love with the natural world around him. As his passion takes flight, however, he begins to ask what it means to be "the rare bird, the oddity."
By turns angry, funny, elegiac, and heartbreaking, The Home Place is a remarkable meditation on nature and belonging, at once a deeply moving memoir and riveting exploration of the contradictions of black identity in the rural South--and in America today.
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Publisher:
Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, 2016.
Edition:
First edition.
ISBN:
9781571313508
Branch Call Number:
BOOK CLUB HOME PLA
Characteristics:
10 books (216 pages), 1 discussion guide, 1 bag.
Additional Contributors:
Opinion
From Library Staff
From Library Staff
(South Carolina) nonfiction
Lanham shares lyrically-written stories, deep connections to family, his strong sense of place, a passion for nature, and optimism and humor, along with the frustration of being the uncommon African American ornithologist in a predominantly white field. Every reader will be inspired and feel thes... Read More »
The Tree Hugger
A lyrical memoir that connects heart to a culture of place--in South Carolina.
If you enjoy prose that flows—like poetry, heartwarming & witty family stories, lyrical nature revelry, thoughtful social justice advocacy rooted in a strong South Carolina land ethic and a plethora of optimism then this book will charm & enlighten you!
This book offers so many powerful ... Read More »
From the critics
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Add a CommentLovely writing about land that is familiar to me although some parts are more lyrical than others.
Lanham sings with wise and provocative wit of land ethics moving forward with social justice and loving his family and their place of origin.
If you enjoy prose that flows—like poetry, heartwarming & witty family stories, lyrical nature revelry, thoughtful social justice advocacy rooted in a strong South Carolina land ethic and a plethora of optimism then this book will charm & enlighten you!
This book offers so many powerful connections; I highly recommend this book to book clubs!