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Casa de oración nº 2
Una crónica, mitad confesión, mitad cuaderno de viajes, del largo periplo que llevó a Mark Richard de vuelta al lugar donde comenzó su viaje espiritual.
Un apasionante y descarnado relato de superación y lucha.
«Imagina que nace un “niño especial”, lo que en el Sur viene a ser algo entre síndrome de Down y dislexia». El padre, violento e impredecible, no está, aunque tampoco es que importe mucho porque cuando está es como si no estuviera, se pasa el día bebiendo, lamentando la rendición del general Lee y el desmoronamiento del viejo Sur. Su hijo, Mark, ha nacido con una deformidad en las caderas y va a pasarse la infancia postrado en la cama, entrando y saliendo de quirófanos y hospitales para niños lisiados. El médico ha dicho que, a partir de los treinta, vivirá condenado a una silla de ruedas. Así que el tiempo apremia. A los trece, pese a su discapacidad, Mark ya es el locutor de radio más joven del país. Lee mucho, se mete en problemas, duda de su fe, abandona los estudios y se dedica a faenar durante tres años en barcos pesqueros. Trabaja de fotógrafo aéreo, pintor de brocha gorda, camarero e investigador privado. Y el día que vence el plazo establecido por el médico agorero, se muda a Nueva York, gana un prestigioso premio literario y emprende una exitosa carrera de escritor.
Un apasionante y descarnado relato de superación y lucha.
«Imagina que nace un “niño especial”, lo que en el Sur viene a ser algo entre síndrome de Down y dislexia». El padre, violento e impredecible, no está, aunque tampoco es que importe mucho porque cuando está es como si no estuviera, se pasa el día bebiendo, lamentando la rendición del general Lee y el desmoronamiento del viejo Sur. Su hijo, Mark, ha nacido con una deformidad en las caderas y va a pasarse la infancia postrado en la cama, entrando y saliendo de quirófanos y hospitales para niños lisiados. El médico ha dicho que, a partir de los treinta, vivirá condenado a una silla de ruedas. Así que el tiempo apremia. A los trece, pese a su discapacidad, Mark ya es el locutor de radio más joven del país. Lee mucho, se mete en problemas, duda de su fe, abandona los estudios y se dedica a faenar durante tres años en barcos pesqueros. Trabaja de fotógrafo aéreo, pintor de brocha gorda, camarero e investigador privado. Y el día que vence el plazo establecido por el médico agorero, se muda a Nueva York, gana un prestigioso premio literario y emprende una exitosa carrera de escritor.
191 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 1992
34 people are currently reading
1444 people want to read
About the author
Mark Richard
52 books86 followersMark Richard is an American short story writer, novelist, screenwriter, and poet. He is the author of two award-winning short story collections, The Ice at the Bottom of the World and Charity, a bestselling novel, Fishboy, and House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home.
Mark Richard was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas and Virginia. As heard on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR: He grew up in the 1960s in a racially divided rural town in Virginia. His family was poor. He was born with deformed hips and spent years in and out of charity hospitals. When his father walked out, his mother withdrew further into a world of faith. In a new memoir "House of Prayer No. 2" he details growing up in the American South as a “The Special Child” and how the racial tensions and religious fervor of his home town animate his writing today.[1]
He attended college at Washington and Lee University. His first book, the short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World, won the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, GQ, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Grand Street, Shenandoah, The Quarterly, Equator, and Antaeus.
He is the recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California Irvine, University of Mississippi, Arizona State University, the University of the South, Sewanee, and The Writer’s Voice in New York. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Spin, Esquire, George, Detour, Vogue, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review, and he has been a correspondent for the BBC. He was also screenwriter for the film Stop-Loss.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.
Mark Richard was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up in Texas and Virginia. As heard on the Diane Rehm Show on NPR: He grew up in the 1960s in a racially divided rural town in Virginia. His family was poor. He was born with deformed hips and spent years in and out of charity hospitals. When his father walked out, his mother withdrew further into a world of faith. In a new memoir "House of Prayer No. 2" he details growing up in the American South as a “The Special Child” and how the racial tensions and religious fervor of his home town animate his writing today.[1]
He attended college at Washington and Lee University. His first book, the short story collection The Ice at the Bottom of the World, won the 1990 PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award. His short stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s, Esquire, GQ, The Paris Review, The Oxford American, Grand Street, Shenandoah, The Quarterly, Equator, and Antaeus.
He is the recipient of the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award, a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Whiting Award, a New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship, the Mary Francis Hobson Medal for Arts and Letters, and a National Magazine Award for Fiction. He has been writer-in-residence at the University of California Irvine, University of Mississippi, Arizona State University, the University of the South, Sewanee, and The Writer’s Voice in New York. His journalism has appeared in The New York Times, Harper’s, Spin, Esquire, George, Detour, Vogue, The Oxford American, and The Southern Review, and he has been a correspondent for the BBC. He was also screenwriter for the film Stop-Loss.
He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Jennifer Allen and their three sons.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 197 reviews
August 31, 2016
This is a Southern Gothic memoir, and the first I enjoyed that was written in second person. It was odd at first, but eventually I accepted all the escapades as things I might have done when I was a wild young man. Not really, but I did stop noticing the POV and just lived the book.
December 16, 2011
You decide to read this book because it was supposed to be good, the author grew up with a physical challenge and ostensibly talks about being a writer. You think you'll be able to relate to and enjoy the author's memoir.
But you discover upon the first page that the narrative is in the second person. The author refers to his parents as "the mother" and "the father." Perhaps this style is meant to draw you in and make you feel a part of the story, but it has the opposite effect. Sure, it's intriguing and different, but it's also off-putting, weird, and serves to make you feel more distant from the author, who by only telling you bits and pieces of his colorful life, increases that distance.
You're left with questions because of all the gaps in the telling, like the all-too-brief reference to his first true love, who dies. What?! you think. You want to know more! Then near the end, when the author turns to religion, you realize what the title means. Oh no! you exclaim, this is yet another person "saved" by religion (though this one does so after decrying his mother's extreme, err, devout religious behavior). Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
But what about the author's physical challenges? And his son's? He calls his father an alcoholic, yet he seems to be one too. Perhaps that went away once he found a way to answer the Call. You won't know.
When you're trying to finish, you get a new issue of Entertainment Weekly, where this book is on a list of the 10 best non fiction of 2011. You shake your head, wondering how your opinion can be so vastly different from a critic in a national magazine. You wish you could be that critic. In the meantime, you hope that this review helps illustrate your feelings, while expressing that it doesn't even come close to replicating the author's style.
But you discover upon the first page that the narrative is in the second person. The author refers to his parents as "the mother" and "the father." Perhaps this style is meant to draw you in and make you feel a part of the story, but it has the opposite effect. Sure, it's intriguing and different, but it's also off-putting, weird, and serves to make you feel more distant from the author, who by only telling you bits and pieces of his colorful life, increases that distance.
You're left with questions because of all the gaps in the telling, like the all-too-brief reference to his first true love, who dies. What?! you think. You want to know more! Then near the end, when the author turns to religion, you realize what the title means. Oh no! you exclaim, this is yet another person "saved" by religion (though this one does so after decrying his mother's extreme, err, devout religious behavior). Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.
But what about the author's physical challenges? And his son's? He calls his father an alcoholic, yet he seems to be one too. Perhaps that went away once he found a way to answer the Call. You won't know.
When you're trying to finish, you get a new issue of Entertainment Weekly, where this book is on a list of the 10 best non fiction of 2011. You shake your head, wondering how your opinion can be so vastly different from a critic in a national magazine. You wish you could be that critic. In the meantime, you hope that this review helps illustrate your feelings, while expressing that it doesn't even come close to replicating the author's style.
June 30, 2011
i am near giddy with anticipation. i was introduced to Mark Richard's novella Fish Boy twelve or so years ago and since then, i have read every story i could get my hands on. oh and what stories he writes. Fish Boy has a surreal feel about it, but most of his stories, like The Birds For Christmas and Gentlemen's Agreement, are deeply rooted in the reality of this life, yet he describes even the most ordinary experiences with a language that makes me swoon.
listen:
"It was a cheap gunshot noise the child made when he tossed the stone up on the tin-roofed shed, not atillery or anything apocalyptic yet, just a nice, good, gunfight-starting shot, and immediately the common rocks in the rock pile the child was standing on were jealous, he could feel them jealous under his feet. They wanted to be not rocks, but rockets and artillery, and the child said, Okay ...
...he worked his way through the pistols and the rifles, bending and tossing, bending and tossing, not waiting till the din had dimmed, but keeping rocks in the air bouncing and banging. Rockets! the child tossed, Hangernades! until the large keystone of the well house was uncovered and the child said, Adam Bomb!"
so you break your self-imposed no-buying-new-books rule and you get House of Prayer No 2 as soon as it comes out. you recognize the seeds of the novella Fishboy in his experiences at sea. and the seeds of the short story The Birds for Christmas, in which a group of broken boys stuck away and forgotten in a children’s hospital watch Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds on Christmas Eve. you think to yourself that his way of writing reminds you of Flannery Connor and you are not surprised later in the book to read that she is his favourite writer. you know instinctively that his writing is similar to hers, not because he emulated writing like her, but because they both write from the same place.
you read a few of the other reviews posted on Goodreads and notice how many comment on allllll the bad things that happened to Mark Richard during his life. but you disagree. you think - and you suspect that Mark Richard would agree - that what’s surprising is how much good there has been. you realize your childhood probably had more in common with that of Mark Richard then that of the Goodreads reviewers. you were raised in the bad and that you were able to leave it behind and having good in your life is something you are very aware of. surprised by. grateful for.
listen:
"It was a cheap gunshot noise the child made when he tossed the stone up on the tin-roofed shed, not atillery or anything apocalyptic yet, just a nice, good, gunfight-starting shot, and immediately the common rocks in the rock pile the child was standing on were jealous, he could feel them jealous under his feet. They wanted to be not rocks, but rockets and artillery, and the child said, Okay ...
...he worked his way through the pistols and the rifles, bending and tossing, bending and tossing, not waiting till the din had dimmed, but keeping rocks in the air bouncing and banging. Rockets! the child tossed, Hangernades! until the large keystone of the well house was uncovered and the child said, Adam Bomb!"
so you break your self-imposed no-buying-new-books rule and you get House of Prayer No 2 as soon as it comes out. you recognize the seeds of the novella Fishboy in his experiences at sea. and the seeds of the short story The Birds for Christmas, in which a group of broken boys stuck away and forgotten in a children’s hospital watch Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds on Christmas Eve. you think to yourself that his way of writing reminds you of Flannery Connor and you are not surprised later in the book to read that she is his favourite writer. you know instinctively that his writing is similar to hers, not because he emulated writing like her, but because they both write from the same place.
you read a few of the other reviews posted on Goodreads and notice how many comment on allllll the bad things that happened to Mark Richard during his life. but you disagree. you think - and you suspect that Mark Richard would agree - that what’s surprising is how much good there has been. you realize your childhood probably had more in common with that of Mark Richard then that of the Goodreads reviewers. you were raised in the bad and that you were able to leave it behind and having good in your life is something you are very aware of. surprised by. grateful for.
January 8, 2012
He was called a “special child”. In the South, this was a term used for mentally and physically challenged children. Born with bad hips and a slow demeanor, raised by an alcoholic, quick-tempered father, the boy’s chances in life looked mighty slim, destined to be another discarded outcast.
This astounding memoir follows this “special child”, growing up in rough-hewn Appalachia, subjected to torments from his peers, going through painful surgeries, to correct his deformed hips and finally landing him in adulthood, aimless and confused.
After stumbling through a series of jobs, like disc jockey, fishing trawler deckhand, private investigator and failed seminarian, to name just a few, he finally settled into a life of a writer. An amazing talent was born.
The book is told in the second person perspective, which is quite daring, somewhat challenging but very effective. For fans of Rick Bragg, this is especially recommended.
Do not just add this to your wish list, go out and find a copy…now!
This astounding memoir follows this “special child”, growing up in rough-hewn Appalachia, subjected to torments from his peers, going through painful surgeries, to correct his deformed hips and finally landing him in adulthood, aimless and confused.
After stumbling through a series of jobs, like disc jockey, fishing trawler deckhand, private investigator and failed seminarian, to name just a few, he finally settled into a life of a writer. An amazing talent was born.
The book is told in the second person perspective, which is quite daring, somewhat challenging but very effective. For fans of Rick Bragg, this is especially recommended.
Do not just add this to your wish list, go out and find a copy…now!
January 23, 2025
This book rocks!!
January 5, 2011
I don't know about you, but a memoir about a writer whose early resume includes stints as a a disc jockey, fishing trawler deckhand, house painter, naval correspondent, aerial photographer, private investigator, foreign journalist, bartender and unsuccessful seminarian pretty much can't be bad. And this one is brilliant. It's sort of like a Southern "Running with Scissors," but it's so much more than that. Mark Richard overcame a seriously Southern Gothic upbringing and a crippling hip ailment to become an award-winning writer. He took the long way to the award-winning writer part (see list of jobs above), but in a time when it seems like you may as well hang it up if you haven't been high school valedictorian and graduated summa cum laude from Harvard, I found his circuitous route to success on his own terms incredibly encouraging.
Attention, eccentrics and daydreamers: this book is for you!
Oh, and the writing? It's astounding, not like anything you've ever read before. This book is not to be missed!
Attention, eccentrics and daydreamers: this book is for you!
Oh, and the writing? It's astounding, not like anything you've ever read before. This book is not to be missed!
September 18, 2021
This was an enjoyable read. The author filled his biography with a lot of interesting stories and hardships he experienced in both his youth and adulthood. It kept my attention from start to finish, and besides feeling for him, I also learned some interesting things about living in the South. It took a bit to adjust to him writing in the second person but after a while, I got used to it. 4 stars!
May 11, 2025
No terminé de entrar en este libro, hubo momentos que me daba la impresión de estar leyendo las instrucciones de un electrodoméstico. En más de una ocasión pensé en abandonarlo, algo que es muy difícil que haga, rara vez.
January 15, 2023
The author has an interesting enough story for a memoir, but unlike other readers who found the writing to be "genius", I found the disjointed style and the use of "you" when writing about himself to be somewhat off-putting. It's as though the author is unable or unwilling to own his own story.
June 15, 2015
Rating books: as I believe I've said somewhere, I don't like ratings because I'm not capable of a system. Books that I think are badly written I will rate low; books that I disagree with I will rate low; books that I enjoy I tend to rate mid-to-high, but never the highest, which is only reserved for the books that I think I will remember the best. But that rationale is exploded by the very worst books--the Ayn Rands and the Gone with the Winds--whose very badness carries them full circle into the "most memorable" category.
In any case, I have given this book the highest rating because it's a memoir with a gusting downwind style that avoids the shoals of the first person narrative, it is packed with memorable fellow travelers, and its narrative arc is a fugue state that is as blind as it is redemptive. For a while I think some memoirists have all the luck in the characters they have been dealt, but then I think that it takes more than a camera obscura to be Vermeer. In this case it's not even only the additional gift of felicitous writing--there's also the spirit of someone whose physical debilities cause him to categorize pain in colors but who refuses to be slowed by the fact that he is a wreck.
As a boy in the house of a relative there is an oar-ship model that people say is Viking, but young Richards notices the little man tied to the mast. There is much about the sea, a Southern sea with stink and tawdriness and miracles, but also a sea that carries Richards through his own educative odyssey of sirens, oddities, and god-tossed fortunes--one of the least affecting but nonetheless fun of which is him on assignment in Europe, with Esquire magazine picking up the tab, trying to track down and interview a touring Tom Waits, and giving up in favor of taking a series of first trains out of the station to wherever they happen to be going and eventually winding up as the only guest in a back-country Corsican inn that surely housed Odysseus.
Ultimately it is all uplifting--a word that I hate to use because it is an adjective of cheap witness and skin-deep evangelizing. But Richards forces my hand because this book is all the opposite of those things.
In any case, I have given this book the highest rating because it's a memoir with a gusting downwind style that avoids the shoals of the first person narrative, it is packed with memorable fellow travelers, and its narrative arc is a fugue state that is as blind as it is redemptive. For a while I think some memoirists have all the luck in the characters they have been dealt, but then I think that it takes more than a camera obscura to be Vermeer. In this case it's not even only the additional gift of felicitous writing--there's also the spirit of someone whose physical debilities cause him to categorize pain in colors but who refuses to be slowed by the fact that he is a wreck.
As a boy in the house of a relative there is an oar-ship model that people say is Viking, but young Richards notices the little man tied to the mast. There is much about the sea, a Southern sea with stink and tawdriness and miracles, but also a sea that carries Richards through his own educative odyssey of sirens, oddities, and god-tossed fortunes--one of the least affecting but nonetheless fun of which is him on assignment in Europe, with Esquire magazine picking up the tab, trying to track down and interview a touring Tom Waits, and giving up in favor of taking a series of first trains out of the station to wherever they happen to be going and eventually winding up as the only guest in a back-country Corsican inn that surely housed Odysseus.
Ultimately it is all uplifting--a word that I hate to use because it is an adjective of cheap witness and skin-deep evangelizing. But Richards forces my hand because this book is all the opposite of those things.
May 23, 2013
The House of Prayer No.2 is a terrific memoir of the life of Mark Richards. The author, Mark Richards, presents a different perspective on his life through this interesting biography. As a young child with deformed hips, Richards is said to spend the rest of his adult life in a wheelchair, “With or without nails, your son will probably be in a wheelchair by the time he’s thirty anyways” [Richards 29]. With this sentence, Richards set out to accomplish as much as he could in the limited time he had. Throughout his life journey, Richards gets himself in sticky situations, overcomes obstacles, as well as finding out who he really is through his relationship with God. It was a good read, though I didn’t feel as though I got as much out of it as I would have liked to because of the narration.
The beginning of the book started out in third person narration, and changed to second person during the middle of the plot. With a first person narration, I would have got more insight as to what the author really felt in some of his tragic situations. Though the narration wasn’t was I was used to, the author created vivid scenes throughout the novel that better helped me understand the plot. “You are sitting down there one day behind the wheel eating blackberries and you faintly recognize a pattern on the old broken dashboard, the sun-corrupted leather split into squarish diamonds in a long pattern running the length of the dashboard, its triangular head moving toward you over the Sputnik-antennae turn signal jutting from the steering column, the split black tongue flickering...”[Richards 63].
I liked the overall theme presented in this story; everyone faces obstacles in life, and it is in your power to choose how to overcome them. Richards was a very brave man, and he didn’t let his situation of crippled hips destroy his love for adventure and learning. Richards eventually became a very successful writer and against the odds proved doctors wrong as he passed the age of thirty and was still walking.
The beginning of the book started out in third person narration, and changed to second person during the middle of the plot. With a first person narration, I would have got more insight as to what the author really felt in some of his tragic situations. Though the narration wasn’t was I was used to, the author created vivid scenes throughout the novel that better helped me understand the plot. “You are sitting down there one day behind the wheel eating blackberries and you faintly recognize a pattern on the old broken dashboard, the sun-corrupted leather split into squarish diamonds in a long pattern running the length of the dashboard, its triangular head moving toward you over the Sputnik-antennae turn signal jutting from the steering column, the split black tongue flickering...”[Richards 63].
I liked the overall theme presented in this story; everyone faces obstacles in life, and it is in your power to choose how to overcome them. Richards was a very brave man, and he didn’t let his situation of crippled hips destroy his love for adventure and learning. Richards eventually became a very successful writer and against the odds proved doctors wrong as he passed the age of thirty and was still walking.
May 13, 2011
A very different writing style than what I'm used to, but I like it. I found out about this book from the Festival of Faith and Writing (Calvin College) Newsletter which recently came out. The author will be one of the speakers for the 2012 Conference. You can read the first chapter online at Amazon or B/N, which is how I decided to give the book a try. The book begins like this:
"Say you have a "Special Child", which in the South means one between Down's and dyslexic. Birth him with his father away on Army Maneuvers along East Texas bayous. Give him his only visitor in the military hospital his father's father, a sometime railroad man, sometime hired gun for Huey Long with a Louisiana Special Police badge. Take the infant to Manhattan, Kansas, in winter, where the only visitor is a Chinese peeping tom, little yellow face in the windows during the cold nights. Further frighten the mother, age twenty, with the child's convulsions. There's something "different" about this child, the doctors say."
Richard's entire memoir reads like this. It seems like such a fantastic story in so many places. His story is about searching and finding God--actually, in most places it's more like he's avoiding God, but God doesn't give up on him. One of my favorite things he says in the book is:
". . . the world will try to erase your spiritual beginnings, and how sometimes it is necessary to go back to where one's spiritual journey began."
I never thought of it that way before, and think it is worth pondering a bit.
"Say you have a "Special Child", which in the South means one between Down's and dyslexic. Birth him with his father away on Army Maneuvers along East Texas bayous. Give him his only visitor in the military hospital his father's father, a sometime railroad man, sometime hired gun for Huey Long with a Louisiana Special Police badge. Take the infant to Manhattan, Kansas, in winter, where the only visitor is a Chinese peeping tom, little yellow face in the windows during the cold nights. Further frighten the mother, age twenty, with the child's convulsions. There's something "different" about this child, the doctors say."
Richard's entire memoir reads like this. It seems like such a fantastic story in so many places. His story is about searching and finding God--actually, in most places it's more like he's avoiding God, but God doesn't give up on him. One of my favorite things he says in the book is:
". . . the world will try to erase your spiritual beginnings, and how sometimes it is necessary to go back to where one's spiritual journey began."
I never thought of it that way before, and think it is worth pondering a bit.
July 26, 2011
Why doesn't GoodReads have an "abandoned" option, instead of just "currently reading" or "read"? I very rarely give myself permission to abandon a book, but this one pushed me over the edge. Entirely written in second person ("you . . . do this, you do that"), you (yes, you) gradually feel exhausted, as if you're being constantly told what to do. Remarkably grating. Coupled with this rotten point-of-view choice, the author has apparently lived and experienced every unfathomable event one can fathom -- e.g. rescuing babies being swallowed by boa constrictors by lopping off the snake's head with a sword, and then pulling the decapitated head from the baby as the snake's body writhes around the nursery? Come on.
Abandoned on p. 80 (out of 140 e-book pages).
Abandoned on p. 80 (out of 140 e-book pages).
October 31, 2013
A fascinating experiment in point of view: it opens with an overview in distancing third-person; then it becomes a story told in differently distancing second person. His childhood and child self are fascinating.
For me, he did not fully lay the base for his religious conversion; I am slow that way, perhaps; spiritual omens do suffuse the narrative. Certainly the nature of the experience of his Call itself frustrated me. For one thing, second-person POV makes it hard to explain and reflect, though it can be done. But can a religious calling really be depicted anyway?
House of Prayer No. 2 is like the greatest half of a memoir ever written and then it goes on and diffuses its power somewhat. But it's still a gem.
For me, he did not fully lay the base for his religious conversion; I am slow that way, perhaps; spiritual omens do suffuse the narrative. Certainly the nature of the experience of his Call itself frustrated me. For one thing, second-person POV makes it hard to explain and reflect, though it can be done. But can a religious calling really be depicted anyway?
House of Prayer No. 2 is like the greatest half of a memoir ever written and then it goes on and diffuses its power somewhat. But it's still a gem.
May 5, 2011
Written in a choppy, detached style, reminiscent of recipes (or the teletype the author used at the radio station as a youth). Only this time, rather than directions on baking chocolate cake, I received an in depth tutorial on the myriad ways to be an asshole (I do not use this word lightly). I get the feeling, whether it was intentional or not, that this was the only way he could get through his history. Full of mental and physical pain, cheating, womanizing, lies, drugs, and drinking, it is a wonder he's alive. I plowed through, however, hoping for redemption, and quite thankfully found it in the very last sentence. Pretty amazing.
April 3, 2012
Reviews are split about the use of second person in this memoir. It didn't work consistently for me not only because the address switches from mother to speaker, but also because of the sheer repetition of the word "you" and the repeated structure of "you verb," "you verb." I'm interested that the synopsis calls this part travelogue. I might say it read more like a travel-list. Some details of the wandering, especially towards the end, became bigger than the story. I prefer a bit more attention to narrative pace. There were several beginnings with no endings.
June 4, 2020
There’s a lot of talk in reviews about this memoir being written in the second person. I don’t think that matters all that much. Mark Richard writes it so well, that I stopped noticing that it’s in the second person pretty early on.
He had a tough run as a writer. It’s a real bummer he’s not pumping out fiction right now, but who could blame him? This memoir is great. If you like his literary fiction and it leaves you wondering how he came up with some of wild stuff in it, the memoir may answer a few of your questions.
He had a tough run as a writer. It’s a real bummer he’s not pumping out fiction right now, but who could blame him? This memoir is great. If you like his literary fiction and it leaves you wondering how he came up with some of wild stuff in it, the memoir may answer a few of your questions.
February 17, 2011
Cannot wait to read this. His story, "Her Favorite Story" from The Ice at the Bottom of the World is one of my top ten favorite short stories of all time, and the whole collection ranks up there among my story collection faves. Might even lift my self-imposed book-buying ban so I don't have to wait for my small-town library to acquire it.
May 23, 2011
Stunning and beautifully written memoir. I've never actually read a whole book in the second person, and usually find it very dictatorial and thus a turn off, but Richard really makes it work. The 'you' puts the reader in his body, in his mind, following each action and subsequent thought just as Richard had. The landscape is rich and vast, the story one of ultimate success.
January 29, 2013
One of the best memoirs I've every read. Poetic. Heart-breaking. Beautiful. Also, funny and sweet.
December 6, 2021
I don't remember who recommended it to me, or when. If I'd know it was written in second person, in present and future tense, I doubt I would've tried it. But it was 3am, I wanted to get back to sleep, I'd remembered the night before that I had some unheard audiobooks from an old Audible account, I wanted a voice reading lines to put me to sleep, I misremembered what type of book it was, and my eyes misread the run time.
A voice through my phone speaker told me it was a memoir. Read by the author. Oh... dang...
Then he began to speak. "Say you have a 'special child,' which in the South means one between Down's and dyslexic..." The reader/listener is directly invited into the setting of the scene, to witness the pieces put in place around them. And then, "Say you are the special child. Say one reason you are special is because there is something wrong with your legs..." As mentioned, second person rarely works for me. Maybe it was the hour, or the words not flat on a page but in the author's voice, but I entered in.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys memoir, especially writers, and, even more so, those who recognize and appreciate the spiritual aspect of our stories and development. Yes, it is a writer's journey home, to his writing and spiritual roots and also to where he belongs as a writer and perhaps person of faith, which will, of course, evolve beyond the words of the story.
A voice through my phone speaker told me it was a memoir. Read by the author. Oh... dang...
Then he began to speak. "Say you have a 'special child,' which in the South means one between Down's and dyslexic..." The reader/listener is directly invited into the setting of the scene, to witness the pieces put in place around them. And then, "Say you are the special child. Say one reason you are special is because there is something wrong with your legs..." As mentioned, second person rarely works for me. Maybe it was the hour, or the words not flat on a page but in the author's voice, but I entered in.
I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys memoir, especially writers, and, even more so, those who recognize and appreciate the spiritual aspect of our stories and development. Yes, it is a writer's journey home, to his writing and spiritual roots and also to where he belongs as a writer and perhaps person of faith, which will, of course, evolve beyond the words of the story.
March 26, 2021
I don't care for second person narration, and I honestly would not have picked this up or pushed on if it hadn't been given to me a couple weeks ago by my favorite English professor, also the father of a special needs child, with glowing praise. When Dr. Somerville gifts you a book, you read the book!
I saved this to read in the hospital during a child's surgery, and it felt like the right context. This felt very Southern and contemporary. Despite my misgivings, I felt myself drawn in more and more, and the ending was quite powerful.
Scenes of note: the horrible medical care for children with disabilities (or, as they were called then, special children) made me so glad that my kids were born in the 21st century! I was incredibly moved by the conversation where someone tells the author that the suffering of his own disabilities may have been preparation for raising a son with similar disabilities. I have thought often of how certain aspects of my own suffering have been a severe mercy, preparing me to be the mother of my disabled child. The description of writing for the Naval newspaper (features under various pseudonyms, letters to the editor and responses to them) was a fun interlude. I'm glad I read this book.
I saved this to read in the hospital during a child's surgery, and it felt like the right context. This felt very Southern and contemporary. Despite my misgivings, I felt myself drawn in more and more, and the ending was quite powerful.
Scenes of note: the horrible medical care for children with disabilities (or, as they were called then, special children) made me so glad that my kids were born in the 21st century! I was incredibly moved by the conversation where someone tells the author that the suffering of his own disabilities may have been preparation for raising a son with similar disabilities. I have thought often of how certain aspects of my own suffering have been a severe mercy, preparing me to be the mother of my disabled child. The description of writing for the Naval newspaper (features under various pseudonyms, letters to the editor and responses to them) was a fun interlude. I'm glad I read this book.
January 5, 2025
This book was a wild ride, and I don't quite know where we ended up. Very reminiscent of Donald Miller's early books (though I enjoyed those more than this one).
Likes:
- The author writes in second person, which is a bit odd but also really fun to read.
- The no chapters aspect of the book was so interesting. I've never read a book that just flowed from beginning to end.
- The author had some really cool experiences that I enjoyed reading about.
- He did eventually find the Lord, and I enjoyed the wandering path, if you will, that he took explaining his journey in that regard.
Dislikes:
- I reached a point about halfway through where I was really tired of hearing about alcohol and women and bad decisions. I feel we could have accelerated a bit through that.
- On that note, the last few pages about the church felt very rushed. I feel there was more to that story that I wanted to hear. Namely, why was this church so important to him? I feel like I was just left with a lot of questions.
- If I was searching for God and read this book, I don't think I would be any closer to God when I finished. To me, that's a travesty of what could be an inspirational or more touching story.
Likes:
- The author writes in second person, which is a bit odd but also really fun to read.
- The no chapters aspect of the book was so interesting. I've never read a book that just flowed from beginning to end.
- The author had some really cool experiences that I enjoyed reading about.
- He did eventually find the Lord, and I enjoyed the wandering path, if you will, that he took explaining his journey in that regard.
Dislikes:
- I reached a point about halfway through where I was really tired of hearing about alcohol and women and bad decisions. I feel we could have accelerated a bit through that.
- On that note, the last few pages about the church felt very rushed. I feel there was more to that story that I wanted to hear. Namely, why was this church so important to him? I feel like I was just left with a lot of questions.
- If I was searching for God and read this book, I don't think I would be any closer to God when I finished. To me, that's a travesty of what could be an inspirational or more touching story.
November 13, 2018
The author nearly lost me as I listened to his story. He doesn't sugar coat the life he lived during his late childhood and early adult years, a life that drove his mother to her knees in prayer. In as much, this is an adult book. However, I had to discover what "House of Prayer No. 2" had to do with a young man living so recklessly. I am glad I did . . . for what I learned about writing, what I learned about life outside my protected conservative Christian bubble, and what I learned about God's redemptive love.
"Just like Sadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, sometimes God saves us through the fire, sometimes he saves us from the fire, and sometimes he saves us not at all."
The first two of these three sometimes scenarios are acceptable to me. The third is harder to accept, but I think that third sometimes is a choice we make. The author alludes to this when he shares his father's friend's words after the ashes have been scattered on the sea: "He is where he wanted to be."
"Just like Sadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, sometimes God saves us through the fire, sometimes he saves us from the fire, and sometimes he saves us not at all."
The first two of these three sometimes scenarios are acceptable to me. The third is harder to accept, but I think that third sometimes is a choice we make. The author alludes to this when he shares his father's friend's words after the ashes have been scattered on the sea: "He is where he wanted to be."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 3, 2019
I for one loved the second person narrative that Mark Richards has written his memoir in. It's like standing back and looking at something from a little bit farther away than you normally would, turning your head slightly and in doing so you see even more. He tells his story with humor, honesty and just a basic truthfulness that is endearing, funny and at the same time sobering. He does not gloss over the truth and tells it like it was growing up the 'special child' in the South. Due to deformities in his hips he is forced to go through several horrific surgeries from what he must recover from in full body casts, in the summer, in the south with NO air conditioning. Ugh. Despite severe pain through most of his life he enjoys many adventures (many of them drunken and drug infused), and comes to terms with the tough things life has thrown at him. Specifically his father. I highly recommend this book. It is a life well documented and beautifully described. It is not a pretty life but it is an honest life.
August 14, 2024
I had never heard of this author until George Saunders recommended his writing on his substack. I immediately looked Richard up and to my delight discovered he had written a memoir, and boy, what a memoir it is. What he omits gives the scenes he does write about the clarity of cut glass. His prose is straighforward, tough, you might say, and oh, so observant. As a boy Richard was considered a "special child." It wasn't until he was an adolescent that he's told he needs hip surgery and "nails driven into his hips." He spends months in a full body cast and the things that boy goes through and observes are astounding. Richard never let his chronic and excruciating pain stop him. The memoir follows his life as a cripple of sorts and his spiritual journey as a writer, husband and father. I loved this memoir for it's directness and the fact that it is such clean writing. Richard blames no one and lets peoples' actions speak for themselves. A miracle of blameless family history that allows the reader to draw her own conclusions.
March 27, 2019
Took me a while to get into this book. I am glad that I kept reading. I liked the story better once he got into his college years and beyond. Maybe by this time I had gotten accustomed to his one or two sentence description of an entire episode in his life. It is interesting how those few sentences were well crafted without unnecessary words. Some of the sentences were especially beautiful in the way the descriptions were written. One of my favorites comes in the story of boys taking a kickball onto an iced over pond and falling through the ice. “Nearby the kickball sat on the ice in the melting sun.” Interesting life.
December 4, 2017
A remarkable memoir that is at once a history of a family, a history of mid and late 20th Cent rural Southside Virginia, and a spiritual memoir. It ranges over literature, film, and spirituality, across geographies, and in and out of a man's search for closure, God, and home. Its in many ways the beau ideal of a memoir. Atmospheric and evocative, Richard elicits the sympathy of the reader while maintaining the emotional space that creates the mysterious emotional bond that binds the reader to the author's own search for the known and unknown.
January 2, 2020
This is the weirdest book I have ever read. Really.
It is written in third person but not exactly, as the author reffers to himself as "you".
You keep reading because you want to know what is going to happen, out of curiosity but not because it is gripping.
In fact it is so creepy with lines like this: "..along the highway where once you found a fetus in a cider bottle"
or
"At the hospital they found that a roach had crawled into one of his ears and become stuck and died".
Ewwwww.
And so on.
It is written in third person but not exactly, as the author reffers to himself as "you".
You keep reading because you want to know what is going to happen, out of curiosity but not because it is gripping.
In fact it is so creepy with lines like this: "..along the highway where once you found a fetus in a cider bottle"
or
"At the hospital they found that a roach had crawled into one of his ears and become stuck and died".
Ewwwww.
And so on.
January 5, 2023
Like other readers, I was distracted by the author's choice to write in the second person. I also agree with others that the first half of the book felt more chaotic, while the second part seemed reined in; however, I think that this was intentional. As Richard's found religion and grew older, his life became more focused and the tone of the book reflects this. His life story is pretty outrageous. At times I wondered if certain parts were embellished, as they seemed so outlandish. But it doesn't really matter to me either way. He is a gifted writer and this was an enjoyable read that didn't beat you over the head with the spiritual elements.
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