Bøger i Crux: The Georgia Literary Non serien

Prodigals, a memoir in essay, explores the life of Sarah Beth Childer's wildly creative brother, lost to suicide at twenty-two, and her own life through the lens of the biblical parable of the Prodigal Son. Childer's foregrounds the Appalachian landscape, depicting hardwood forests, winding roads, mining-stained rivers, and neighborhoods tucked between mountains. Her story is universal and uniquely Appalachian, shaped by fervent faith, resistance to traditional medicine, and conflicting desires to escape and stay forever home. Weaving in Branwell Brontèe, the Brontèe sisters' alcoholic brother; Jimmy Swaggart, fallen televangelist; and Robert Crumb, author of sexist and racist comics, Childers examines the role of the prodigal within the tapestry of family life and beyond.

Twice declared extinct, North America's most endangered mammal species, the black-footed ferret (BFF), is making a comeback thanks to an evolving conservation regimen at more than thirty reintroduction sites across the continent. Lawrence Lenhart lingers at one such site in his proverbial backyard, the Aubrey Valley in northern Arizona. He clocks hundreds of hours behind the wheel, rolling over ranch ruts as he shines a spotlight over dusky sage steppe in the hopes of catching a fleck of emerald eyeshine. The beguiling weasel at the center of this book is more than a charismatic minifauna; it is the covert ambassador of a critical ecosystem that has dwindled to 1 percent of its former size. In a landscape menaced by habitat fragmentation, bacterial plague, settler colonialism, and soil death, a ferret must be resilient. Lenhart investigates the human efforts to sustain the species through monitoring, vaccination, captive breeding, and even cloning. Lenhart balances this lens of environmental witness with personal essaying that captures the parallel story of his wife's pregnancy as he realizes the ferret's conservation story is dramatically synchronized with her trimesters. In preparing to raise a child in the Anthropocene, Lenhart takes stock of his own ecosystem and finds something is amiss. Through an ethic of "deeper ecology," Lenhart must hone his ecological interest in the black-footed ferret to assure it isn't overshadowed by his own paternal interests.

Immigrant children first speak the language of their mothers, and in Toledo, Ohio's Little Syria neighborhood where Joseph Geha grew up, the first place he would go to find his mother would be the kitchen. Many of today's immigrants use Skype to keep in touch with folks back in the old country but in those "radio days" of old before the luxuries of hot running water or freezers, much less refrigeration, blenders, or microwaves, the kitchen was where an immigrant mother usually had to be, snapping peas or rolling grape leaves while she waited for the dough to rise. There, Geha's mother took special pride in the traditional Syro-Lebanese food she cooked, such as stuffed eggplant, lentil soup, kibbeh with tahini sauce, shish barak, and fragrant sesame cookies. As much a memoir as a cookbook, Kitchen Arabic illustrates the journey of Geha's early years in America and his family's struggle to learn the language and ways of a new world. A compilation of family recipes and of the stories that came with them, it deftly blends culture with cuisine. In her kitchen, Geha's mother took special pride in the Arabic dishes she cooked, cherishing that aspect of her heritage that, unlike language, has changed very little over time and distance. With this book, Geha shares how the food of his heritage sustained his family throughout that cultural journey, speaking to them--in a language that needs no translation--of joy and comfort and love.