A deeply moving work of narrative nonfiction on the tragic shootings at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina.
Jennifer Berry Hawes writes for the Charleston-based Post and Courier, where she spent a decade covering religion and now works on a team that handles in-depth investigative reporting projects for the paper. Her work has won many honors including a Pulitzer Prize, a George Polk Award, a National Headliner Award, and a Dart Award for Journalism & Trauma. She lives in Charleston.
"This magisterial account of the 2015 hate crime and its aftermath,
by a Pulitzer-winning local reporter, delivers a heart-rending
portrait of life for the survivors and a powerful meditation on the
meaning of mercy." --The New York Times Editor's Choice "In Grace
Will Lead Us Home, Hawes delivers a rich and powerful account of
the events, actors and consequences of the Mother Emanuel tragedy,
drawing upon her considerable talents as a decorated investigative
journalist." --Charleston Post and Courier "In heartbreaking
detail, this tour de force of reportage contrasts the goodness and
bravery of the victims with the actions of the dead-eyed killer on
a mission of hate." --O, The Oprah Magazine "Fresh and
compelling... Hawes captures candid scenes deftly. People are drawn
with insight and depth, and the book's pace clips along like that
of a cliff-hanger or mystery." --Charleston Magazine "Hawes is a
poised writer and a patient observer... She lands the book with
moral force and great feeling." --The New York Times (weekday book
review)
"Hawes is a talented storyteller, recounting every phase of this
saga while focusing on the individual tales of survivors and family
members. At once horrifying and inspiring, engaging and
thought-provoking, this is a definitive must-read about the
Charleston tragedy." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "A
groundbreaking, accessible work of investigative reporting."
--Library Journal (starred review) "With empathy and kindness,
Hawes bears witness to one of the most horrific incidents in recent
American history." --Booklist (starred review)
"Grace Will Lead Us Home is more than a recounting of the crime and
its aftermath... Hawes reflects on the power of anger, pain, and
forgiveness in this moving and personal look at a group of people
whose legacies are shaping today's South." --Garden & Gun "In Grace
Will Lead Us Home, Jennifer Berry Hawes breathes poetry into
tragedy to bring to life the epic grief that haunted a nation's
moral imagination. Written like a novel, observed like a sage, and
narrated with scholarly rigor, Hawes' stirring account of a dark
night in Charleston shows how it seared the American conscience
while forcing lionized politicians to find courage, and tin man
religious leaders to find a heart, for the people they both claimed
to serve. If white supremacy is ever to meet a death knell, this
ringing endorsement of fallen yet redeemable humanity will echo
loudly in our hearts." --Michael Eric Dyson "The great value of
this book is that it tells the stories of the survivors and
victims' families on their own terms, in all of their humanity,
while also showing us how Charleston's tortured history of racism
and gun violence came together on that night in June." --Gabrielle
Union "Jennifer Berry Hawes has written a remarkable document on
one of the most horrific acts of this young century. But it's her
ability to connect a series of carefully-observed scenes--the
difference in size and location of two monuments, a Republican
governor's story of racism (and the state representative who took
out his hearing aid in response), a dialogue between a husband and
wife about the biblical Parable of the Sower--that gives this book
its power. Together, they evoke the racially charged soil on which
this tragic event took place and remind us of the cost of failing
to challenge romantic notions of the South's racial history."
--Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
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