Come by Here: A Memoir in Essays from Georgia’s Geechee Coast

Journalist Powell-Ingabire debuts with a stirring collection that traces the twin histories of her family and of Black settlement along Georgia’s coast. She begins with the personal, sharing recollections of her elegant grandmother and largely absent father, then expands her scope, linking her own sense of connection to Georgia and its coastal islands with that of writer and spiritualist Cornelia Walker Bailey (1944–2017), who served as the “griot,” or storyteller, of Sapelo Island. In adulthood, Powell-Ingabire learned—from sources including Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust—about Gullah Geechee culture, with its unique hybrid of West African and American traditions, and discovered how its influence, from cuisine to crafting, distinguished her and her maternal family from “Black people raised inland.” From there, the collection’s brief yet forceful essays deepen common perceptions of local tourist destinations like the Okenfenokee Swamp with research about their rich Geechee histories, drawing on interviews with families who’ve inhabited the region for generations. Threaded between these sections are pieces in which Powell-Ingabire reflects on contemporary matters including Covid, #MeToo, and the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. Inspiring, informative, and unique, these essays amount to a powerful and elegant probing of the relationship between person and place. Photos. (Sept.)