“The Walled-In Wild” by Boyce Upholt (fiction, ’16)

An essay from Boyce Upholt (fiction, ’16) appears in Roads and Kingdoms:

As soon as we paddled out of Memphis, everything turned green. I had been told it would be like this—wild and quiet and verdant—but still, I was surprised. I thought I knew the local geography; after all, I’ve been driving up and down the nearby stretch of Highway 61 for more than eight years. But when you’re accustomed to tawdry highway gas stations and strip malls, it’s hard to imagine that this kind of quiet, undisciplined greenery persists. [ . . . continue reading here.]