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Blessings and Disasters by Alexis Okeowo

Blessings and Disasters

A Story of Alabama

Alexis Okeowo

Henry Holt and Co. · Print & ebook · August 5, 2025

From a New Yorker staff 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 Montgomery—the former seat of the Confederacy—as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants.

Black & African American LivesSouthern U.S. HistoryCultural Heritage Livescivil rights
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memoirhistorymiddle
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Who it’s for
A vivid Alabama story that moves between memoir, history, and civic reckoning.
Genres
Cultural Heritage Lives, Southern U.S. History, Black & African American Lives
Published
Henry Holt and Co., August 5, 2025

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About this book

From a New Yorker staff 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 Montgomery—the former seat of the Confederacy—as the daughter of Nigerian immigrants. Here, she weaves her family’s story with Alabama’s, defying stereotypes about her endlessly complex, often-pigeonholed home state.

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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 state’s lesser-known histories to examine why Alabama has been the stage for the most extreme results of the American experiment.

Why It Clicks

A vivid Alabama story that moves between memoir, history, and civic reckoning.

Come here for

  • civil rights, memory, and place
  • a thoughtful Alabama-centered lens

Expect

  • reflective, chapter-by-chapter pacing
  • conversation-friendly cultural context

Where it sits

Southern U.S. History55%
Cultural Heritage Lives41%
Black & African American Lives32%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Black & African American Lives
  • Southern U.S. History
  • Social Class
Authors
Alexis Okeowo
Publisher
Henry Holt and Co.
Published
August 5, 2025
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Black & African American Lives