Read House of Prayer No. 2 Storyline:
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...Pages of House of Prayer No. 2 :