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. Her debut memoir is 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.