Sour cherries
Mark Elberfeld
at Buc-ee’s
What do sour cherries, a subway reprimand in Moscow, and an imaginary alligator named Fluffy have in common? In Sour Cherries at Buc-ee’s, Mark Elberfeld invites readers on a deeply personal—and often unexpectedly funny—journey through memory, movement, and meaning.
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.
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.
“In Mark Elberfeld's Sour Cherries, 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, Sour Cherries 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 artist Shawna Miller and getting a rental car, Sour Cherries is a delight that explores all the complexities of human emotion.”
-Taylor Brorby, author of Boys and Oil: Growing Up Gay in a Fractured Land
Part of the pleasure of reading Elberfeld’s work is his easy communion with an eclectic gallery of friends, acquaintances, and fellow artists nurtured in community across time and place. And, caught 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. As he states: “just keep inviting those you want into your own freedom.” Elberfeld’s humanity embraces the contradictions all around and within us. It’s a recipe for liberation and a divining rod to wholeness. And, thankfully for us, he never loses his appetite for the absurd—or a well-timed snack.
- Laurie Clark, MFA in Creative Nonfiction, UNC Wilmington; published in Gulf Stream Magazine, Middlebury Magazine, and The Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review
Pre-order Mark Elberfeld’s debut book sour Cherries at Buc-ee’s
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Atlanta writer Mark Elberfeld began this essay collection—appropriately on the theme of journeys—at a remote chateau in tiny Orquevaux, France. Educated at the University of the South, Middlebury College’s Bread Loaf School of English, and Georgia State University, Mark previously taught sixth grade in the Washington, D.C. area, where he grew up, and in Budapest, Hungary. His work has appeared in NANO Fiction, the Centenary Journal of the Bread Loaf School of English, South Writ Large, and Voices Elevated: 10 Years of the Elk River Writers Workshop. He has also been nominated for publication in Best American Essays. A facilitator and executive coach, Mark lives with his husband, Russell, and their calico, Sophie. This is his first book.