Blessings and Disasters: A Story of Alabama [Hardcover]

From aNew Yorkerstaff 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 Montgomerythe former seat of the Confederacyas the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Here, she weaves her familys story with Alabamas, defying stereotypes about her endlessly complex, often-pigeonholed home state. She immerses us in a landscape dominated today not by cotton fields but by Amazon warehouses, encountering high-powered Christian business leaders lobbying for tribal sovereignty and small-town women coming out against conservative politics. 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 states lesser-known histories to examine why Alabama has been the stage for the most extreme results of the American experiment.

Alexis Okeowohas reported on conflict, human rights, and culture across Africa, Mexico, Europe, and the American South for theNew Yorkerand other publications. Okeowo is the author ofA Moonless, Starless Sky: Ordinary Women and Men Fighting Extremism in Africa, which received the 2018 PEN Open Book Award. Her work has also been anthologized inThe Best American Sports WritingandThe Best American Travel Writing. Okeowo was named journalist of the year by the Newswomens Club of New York in 2020 and received the Reed Environmental Writing Award in 2022.

Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR,The New Yorker, andKirkus

A multifaceted view of Alabama . . . Brilliant.
NPR

In this extraordinary book, Alexis Okeowo examines Alabama as only someone who grew up there could, with care, with criticism,l³B