The End of Tennessee with Rachel M. Hanson

Book People welcomes Rachel M. Hanson, founder of the literary nonprofit Punch Bucket Lit, to talk about her new memoir The End of Tennessee.

Tuesday, October 8th from 6:00pm to 8:00pm.
 
“A haunting memoir of childhood trauma, building a life, and living with wounds that never heal”
 
“Not a year before I ran away from home at seventeen, I stepped out of the house at dusk, still able to see shrub oaks thinned out for winter, fame flower, too, and dun clay so wet the smell of it seemed settled in my skin.” So begins Rachel M. Hanson’s debut memoir about growing up impoverished, uneducated, and surrounded by violence. In lyrical, fragmented prose, she lays bare the impossible choice between self-preservation and her love for five younger siblings for whom she had become a second mother. As the years pass, Hanson struggles with guilt for leaving her siblings as she slowly realizes she could not save them. The End of Tennessee is a testament to a sister’s love—to resilience and determination—a book for anyone who has left one life to create another.

Rachel M. Hanson is the author of The End of Tennessee: a memoir, and her writing can be found in Creative Nonfiction, The Iowa Review, and Joyland Magazine. She was a Grand Canyon river runner for twenty years, and is now an assistant professor at UNC Asheville. She founded and directs Punch Bucket Lit: a literary nonprofit, and resides in Asheville, North Carolina with her partner and their many animals.