Ebook: House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home

A memoir of extraordinary power by an award-winning author. Mark Richard tells the story of his American South, with its heady Gothic mix of racial tension and religious fervor--and of how writing helped him find his way in the world.

Mark Richard grew up as an only child in Southampton County, Virginia. His father gave up a career at NASA to become a solitary forester, whose flashes of wit were matched only by his hair-trigger temper. Mark's Cajun mother was often preoccupied with moody searches for spiritual enlightenment. Their son was born with hip defects and diagnosed as retarded. Richard was called a "special child" and he spent years in charity hospitals popu­lated by children from the poorest neighborhoods.

After several surgeries, Mark became the youngest radio disc jockey in America, and later worked as a deckhand on ocean-going trawlers, an aerial photographer, private investi­gator, a bartender, and a country ham wholesaler, to...