Hannah’s Pick of the Week: Blessings and Disasters by Alexis Okeowo

“The land in Alabama is made up of layers of soil tinted red and brown and black, enriched with clay, sand, iron, and the remains of whoever lived on and fought to stay on it at the time. A primary reason hazard-yellow and hell-red signs gleam from the creamy earth and from the peeling bases of trees is the recognition of that willingly and unwillingly sacrificed blood and the acceptance that it could be necessary to shed some of your own.“

Alexis Okeowo, Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama, pg. 15

Recently, my friend finished a 600+ page biography of a long-dead president. Afterward, he turned to me and said (and I quote), “I love nonfiction — honestly, the drier, the better.” This to say, Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama may be a nonfiction title he’ll want to skip. Never have I been more drawn into the history of a state I truly knew so little about. I have never visited Alabama myself.

Ariel Blake narrates the audiobook version, and she has such a range of emotion and depth to her voice that I could listen to her narrate the back of a cereal box. Drawing on interviews from people and places high and low, as well as personal anecdotes about growing up in Alabama as the daughter of two Nigerian immigrants, Okeowo doesn’t shy away from the grit that built what we now know as the 22^nd state.

While the author does have the tendency to bounce from topic to topic, she interweaves and hearkens back to previous discussions so generously that it is near impossible to dislodge one Alabamian story from another, or from the building of the state itself. Okeowo never fails to humanize her subjects, an act which can often prove a pitfall for some nonfiction authors. I appreciate the intimate spaces she creates, never impeding on the facts of the matter.

For those who enjoy the writings of Imani Perry or Margo Jefferson, or for those looking for a lyrical nonfiction book, Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama is an excellent next read.