Book - Late Migrations: A Natural History of Love & Loss, by Margaret Renkl

Hardback, 233 pages, published 2019. Gorgeous illustrations by the author’s brother. Excellent used condition. Very slight cosmetic scuffing from having been shelved, and one tiny hole in the dust cover (see all pics), but otherwise this copy is still like new. "Growing up in Alabama, Renkl was a devoted reader, an explorer of riverbeds and red-dirt roads, and a fiercely loved daughter. Here, in brief essays, she traces a tender and honest portrait of her complicated parents--her exuberant, creative mother; her steady, supportive father--and of the bittersweet moments that accompany a child’s transition to caregiver. And here, braided into the overall narrative, Renkl offers observations on the world surrounding her suburban Nashville home. Ringing with rapture and heartache, these essays convey the dignity of bluebirds and rat snakes, monarch butterflies and native bees. As these two threads haunt and harmonize with each other, Renkl suggests that there is astonishment to be found in common things: in what seems ordinary, in what we all share. For in both worlds--the natural one and our own--the shadow side of love is always loss, and grief is only love’s own twin." 🪺🐞🦊🦋