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A Writer's Journey Home
Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
February 2011
On Sale: February 15, 2011
224 pages
ISBN: 038551302X
EAN: 9780385513029
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
In this otherworldly memoir of extraordinary power, Mark Richard, an award-winning author, tells his story of growing up in the American South with a heady Gothic mix of racial tension and religious fervor. Called a βspecial child,β Southern social code for mentallyβand physicallyβchallenged children, Richard was crippled by deformed hips and was told he would spend his adult life in a wheelchair. During his early years in charity hospitals, Richard observed the drama of other broken boysβ lives, children from impoverished Appalachia, tobacco country lowlands, and Richmondβs poorest neighborhoods. The son of a solitary alcoholic father whose hair-trigger temper terrorized his family, and of a mother who sought inner peace through fasting, prayer, and scripture, Richard spent his bedridden childhood withdrawn into the company of books. As a young man, Richard, defying both his doctors and parents, set out to experience as much of the world as he couldβas a disc jockey, fishing trawler deckhand, house painter, naval correspondent, aerial photographer, private investigator, foreign journalist, bartender and unsuccessful seminarianβbefore his hips failed him. While digging irrigation ditches in east Texas, he discovered that a teacher had sent a story of his to the Atlantic, where it was named a winner in the magazineβs national fiction contest launching a career much in the mold of Jack London and Mark Twain. A superbly written and irresistible blend of history, travelogue, and personal reflection, House of Prayer No. 2 is a remarkable portrait of a writerβs struggle with his faith, the evolution of his art, and of recognizing oneβs singularity in the face of painful disability. Written with humor and a poetic force, this memoir is destined to become a modern classic.
 Media BuzzOn Point - February 9, 2011
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