Sour Cherries at Buc-ee's

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>What do sour cherries a subway reprimand in Moscow and an imaginary alligator named Fluffy have in common? In </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>Sour Cherries at Buc-ee's</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)> Mark Elberfeld invites readers on a deeply personal-and often unexpectedly funny-journey through memory movement and meaning.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>From a seventh-grade retreat on the Mattaponi River to the surreal vastness of a Buc-ee's gas station Elberfeld traces the threads of identity place and connection. Whether he's reflecting on summer camp road trips in an electric car the quiet radicalism of hospitality or a friend's hauntingly beautiful art show his essays linger in that liminal space between the ordinary and the profound.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>With humor honesty and a teacher's instinct for drawing meaning from mess Elberfeld explores what it means to leave to return to remember and to reframe. For anyone who's ever found themselves crying in a parking lot questioning the shape of freedom or chasing summer like a white whale-this book might just be the life ring you didn't know you needed.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>In Mark Elberfeld's </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>Sour Cherries</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)> we meet something to relish: an unrelenting mind on the page. Here we travel to summer camp to Switzerland to Vermont and that dreaded region: chemistry class. Humorous and meditative </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>Sour Cherries</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)> ponders that age-old quandary: Why must we travel away to really understand who we are at home in ourselves? Building in tension with wide-ranging material from Frankenstein and Walt Whitman to Shawna Miller and getting a rental car Sour Cherries is a delight that explores all the complexities of human emotion.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>--Taylor Brorby author of</span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)> Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land</em></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>[C]aught as we all are in this politically divisive moment as distrust and cynicism hold sway Elberfeld's sensibilities could not be more timely or necessary. The writer's curiosity and good-will whether among friends or strangers offer the rare alternative of civility across difference.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(83 90 98 1)>--Laurie Clark</span></p><p></p>