First published 2025
Alexis Okeowo returns to her childhood home of Montgomery, Alabama, where she lived as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants in the former Confederate capital. The New Yorker staff writer and PEN Award winner combines personal memoir with historical investigation and contemporary reporting to examine one of America's most misunderstood states. Okeowo traces Alabama's transformation from the forced displacement of Creek peoples through the era of enslaved West Africans to today's battles over evolution disclaimers in school textbooks. She documents how the landscape has shifted from cotton plantations to automotive factories and Amazon distribution centers. Through interviews with fellow Alabamians and deep research into overlooked histories, Okeowo challenges common assumptions about the South. She demonstrates how residents can simultaneously love their homeland while confronting its troubling past. This work of memoir and journalism reveals why Alabama has consistently produced the most dramatic outcomes of American social and political experiments.
Genres: american, contemporary, non-fiction, biography-memoir, journalism, american-history
Vibes: intimate, investigative, nuanced, reflective, thought-provoking
Tropes: dual-narrative, historical-investigation, homecoming, personal-reckoning
Setting: Alabama, Montgomery, American South, Nigeria
Period: 19th century, 20th century, 21st century, Contemporary
272 pages · Paperback · Holt Paperbacks
Content warnings: colonialism, racism, slavery