The End of Tennessee (University of South Carolina Press, 2024) by Rachel M. Hanson opens with “Not a year before I ran away from home at seventeen, I stepped out of the house at dusk,” followed by a beautiful passage describing a walk through rural Appalachia on a January night (1). She makes her way down the country road to a neighbor’s house, who was supposedly concerned about how exhausted she seemed and invited her over to “take a break” (Hanson 1). This seemingly considerate display of community is enough to momentarily distract from the foreshadowing introduced in the first sentence. But once she has arrived at the house and the neighbor receives her, the narrative tone quickly shifts as Hanson nervously tells herself that her neighbor “didn’t meant to leave his hands there [on her back] for so long” (Hanson 2). Then, the neighbor gives her “a present on her birthday”: a mini bottle of schnapps and a baggie of crack rocks, with instructions of how to cook it (Hanson 2). The leaden dread of this scene persists throughout End of Tennessee, the heavy weight only building further as we follow the story of a young girl faced with abuse and neglect, who took up the mantle as parent to her siblings—before she makes her escape at seventeen.
The book’s narrative does not unfold carefully; instead, Hanson’s history is presented in fits and bursts of recollection that fall out of order. Hanson cleverly uses the imperfection of memory recall to construct the story: the text takes us back and forth between her childhood, teen years, and adulthood in a parallel to how non-linear the past can seem in our memories. The precise sequence of events becomes less important than the lasting impact the events had on her present, and for a narrative about grappling with the past, this was a perfect format.
The primary thrust of Hanson’s story is how she parented her five younger siblings—their mother was at once controlling and dismissive, their father absent in all ways but physical. It is clear that she loves and genuinely cares for her siblings, but the kernel of injustice nevertheless takes root and grows within. The complicated feelings she has for her siblings—whom she refers to as “the babies”—is most obvious with her brothers. In one scene, she’s reflecting on the time her brother woke her up with “hands that were trying to know my fourteen-year-old body”; then Hanson writes, “It’s confusing though because I still love the child him” (88).
End of Tennessee’s strength is in this plain, unflinching presentation of trauma. Hanson’s writing style is simple and ungarnished, which works to underscore the casual horror of her reality, the way that neglect and outright abuse were so common as to be unnoteworthy.
The true gravity of her childhood comes forward when she recounts an anecdote of starvation to her partner, laughingly recalling mixing chocolate syrup with pasta and eating it with excitement because it was the first time in a while that she had something other than popcorn to eat. Her tone, as with the entirety of the book, is light, almost dismissive, focusing on the hilarity of chocolate-covered pasta rather than the underlying circumstances. But her partner does not laugh with her. Instead he replies, “When you laugh after telling me things like that, it makes me want to cry” (Hanson 167). When we undergo traumatic events, there are many who respond by making light of it because attempting to process our feelings be just as traumatizing as the original event. But there is a certain relief that comes from an outside observer articulating our hurt: they offer validation to our experience, and this helps to begin the healing.
The End of Tennessee is a memoir—but it is perhaps more accurate to call it a memorial. The very act of remembrance is an attempt to lay the ghosts of the past to rest. Although the events of Hanson’s narrative are tragic, this book is not a tragedy; rather, it’s a survivor’s log of her start-stop journey toward freedom and autonomy. As difficult as it may be to read through some of the events, the stakes are so real that you easily become invested in Hanson’s successes. It does not have a perfect happy ending; it is clear that, although her current partner is a reassuring and understanding presence, there is still much internal work to be done. Hanson’s healing journey is not gentle, but rather like re-breaking a crooked bone with the hope for a cleaner heal. But the work, the healing, is happening, and that, in itself, is a triumph over her pain and trauma.
The book ends with Hanson commenting that “old memories aren’t holding me back in the past as easily they once did, and instead of wanting to punish myself for it as I might have before, somehow I just feel unbelievably relieved” (188). Hanson may have reached the end of Tennessee—but every ending is a new, more hopeful beginning.
The End of Tennessee is available from University of South Carolina Press
Isabeau J. Belisle Dempsey (they/them) is a proud Chicagoan, Belizean, Lesbian, and Capricorn. They hold a BA in International Studies & Spanish and are currently earning an MA in English Literature & Publishing, and they hope to eventually put their obsession with commas to good use as an in-house editor. History book co-author, amateur poet, freelance copyeditor, and generally just along for the ride, you can find Isabeau in your local bookstore surreptitiously fixing the shelves—they were once a bookseller and never quite broke the habit.
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