Jim Brown reviewed The Home Place by J. Drew Lanham
Memoir, race, nature, attention
I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out what this book was trying to accomplish. Given the title, I was assuming there would be a large discussion of racer/racism and the worlds of ornithology, birding, naturalism. I assumed the book was designed to show that these fields are (I assume?) very white. But that's not really what this book is - it's primarily just a memoir, one that does directly take up race (especially in some sections that address the horrors of slavery and genealogy) but not in the way I expected.
The most gripping and depressing section addressed moments when Lanham was trying to just do his job (going to a place and logging the birds he sees and hears) and had to be constantly vigilant about his own safety, since he's a Black man walking through the South. I was struck that he needed to …
I spent a good bit of time trying to figure out what this book was trying to accomplish. Given the title, I was assuming there would be a large discussion of racer/racism and the worlds of ornithology, birding, naturalism. I assumed the book was designed to show that these fields are (I assume?) very white. But that's not really what this book is - it's primarily just a memoir, one that does directly take up race (especially in some sections that address the horrors of slavery and genealogy) but not in the way I expected.
The most gripping and depressing section addressed moments when Lanham was trying to just do his job (going to a place and logging the birds he sees and hears) and had to be constantly vigilant about his own safety, since he's a Black man walking through the South. I was struck that he needed to have the ability to both do a job that needs so much attention while also having to split his attention between that job and the violent, terrifying world around him.