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gnostalgia's review against another edition
4.0
Mark Richard is the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Award winner for “The Ice at the Bottom of the World.” He grew up in the rural south under some tough situations:
Sometimes, I wonder how we can take the kindest of words and turn it into something cruel.
In Richard's case he was predicted to be wheelchair bound, but that did not stop him from working a myriad of jobs. In time his hips did fail, but not before one of Richard’s short stories was published and his "writer’s journey" began.
I enjoyed his memoir. His writing style is almost poetic. Many of his tales struck home, because I am old enough to remember the south in those pages. I can remember the exact same toys that I lost in fields all over North Georgia.
I give it a solid 4 stars out of 5.
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 [and] further frighten the mother, age twenty, with the child’s convulsions. There’s something “different” about this child, the doctors say.
Sometimes, I wonder how we can take the kindest of words and turn it into something cruel.
In Richard's case he was predicted to be wheelchair bound, but that did not stop him from working a myriad of jobs. In time his hips did fail, but not before one of Richard’s short stories was published and his "writer’s journey" began.
I enjoyed his memoir. His writing style is almost poetic. Many of his tales struck home, because I am old enough to remember the south in those pages. I can remember the exact same toys that I lost in fields all over North Georgia.
I give it a solid 4 stars out of 5.
atschakfoert's review against another edition
1.0
Quite possibly the worst memoir I've ever tried to read. Written in second person, the story is completely unbelievable. Awful book.
quilly14's review against another edition
2.0
Meh. Very little is explored, it feels like the author just throwing in whatever memories come to mind.
wingedpotato's review against another edition
5.0
22 years ago I read an astounding run-on sentence of a novel: Fishboy by Mark Richard. It was as if William Faulkner had written a pirate book. That story and Richard's short stories have stuck with me a long time. Now to find at this time in my life his memoir, I am struck by his words, "Long ago you have stopped believing in coincidences."
This is an astounding run-on sentence of an autobiography, not quite like anything I have ever read. His life is so different from mine, so exotic, and yet his internal struggles feel so familiar. An intensely personal read for me.
This is an astounding run-on sentence of an autobiography, not quite like anything I have ever read. His life is so different from mine, so exotic, and yet his internal struggles feel so familiar. An intensely personal read for me.
greenspe's review against another edition
5.0
House of Prayer No. 2 begins as a masterpiece and by its finale is just good. The first quarter is phenomenal--a retelling of Richard's childhood that reminded me of Anne Carson--and the next half is excellent. But the final thirty or so pages were really strange. They were rushed, didn't have much to do with what preceded them, the language was really plain, the personal reflection becomes uncharacteristically flat and impersonal, and the stories were too brief and the characters too sketched out to feel as rich as practically every anecdote in the book's first one hundred-fifty pages. The last section about Pastor Ricks and the titular House of Prayer No. 2 should have been expanded into a second volume, not just thrown in at the end of this one. There were also some weirdly racialized moments near the end, of the black-people-are-magic variety, that I tried to forgive, but the last one's a real doozy, so I dunno. Regardless, the prose and the storytelling here are so genuinely astonishing, and for so long I was convinced this was perhaps the best memoir I'd ever read, that I'm sticking to my five stars. The end is weird, but you really can't miss this one.
kimmysanders's review against another edition
3.0
A very southern-style tale of running away from yourself only to keep finding that there in fact you are. A return to faith without being particularly preachy, told in the kind of narrative style that was heavily influenced by Faulkner and Hemingway.
http://unsweet-tea-no-lemon.blogspot.com/2014/05/house-of-prayer-no-2.html
http://unsweet-tea-no-lemon.blogspot.com/2014/05/house-of-prayer-no-2.html
mary00's review against another edition
4.0
I am happy to have won a free copy of this memoir from Goodreads First Reads and to have read it.
This man can write! I was in awe the entire book over his ability to perfectly sum up in a sentence or two experiences that would take other writers pages to do justice. What is so beautiful about his writing is that the actual words that he uses are only half of the story that is evoked to the reader; what is left unsaid is just as powerful. This man has had more note-worthy experiences in his lifetime to date than ten "typical" individuals together would have. Throughout the book I would stop reading at certain times to tell my husband about what I had just read. This is something that I rarely do, and a testament to the power of the author's words and the variety of his life experience. He has truly led a renegade life and his writing style matches it (for example his uncommon choice to write the majority of his memoir using second person perspective, and his deft shrinking of major life experiences into mere sentences (he has fully embraced the concept of "less is more" in this book)).
The author's childhood experiences growing up as a "special child" resonated most deeply with me, as I have a special needs son myself. (As a side note, I often wondered throughout the book if the author might have a high-functioning form of autism, especially when he described some of his behaviors as a child.) He became someone I was rooting for to have a successful and happy life, and it appears that he has done that.
This book sparked an interest in me to read the author's critically acclaimed fiction. However, my local library does not carry any of his works (including this book). It seems a shame that an author this talented should not have books in every library in America.
This man can write! I was in awe the entire book over his ability to perfectly sum up in a sentence or two experiences that would take other writers pages to do justice. What is so beautiful about his writing is that the actual words that he uses are only half of the story that is evoked to the reader; what is left unsaid is just as powerful. This man has had more note-worthy experiences in his lifetime to date than ten "typical" individuals together would have. Throughout the book I would stop reading at certain times to tell my husband about what I had just read. This is something that I rarely do, and a testament to the power of the author's words and the variety of his life experience. He has truly led a renegade life and his writing style matches it (for example his uncommon choice to write the majority of his memoir using second person perspective, and his deft shrinking of major life experiences into mere sentences (he has fully embraced the concept of "less is more" in this book)).
The author's childhood experiences growing up as a "special child" resonated most deeply with me, as I have a special needs son myself. (As a side note, I often wondered throughout the book if the author might have a high-functioning form of autism, especially when he described some of his behaviors as a child.) He became someone I was rooting for to have a successful and happy life, and it appears that he has done that.
This book sparked an interest in me to read the author's critically acclaimed fiction. However, my local library does not carry any of his works (including this book). It seems a shame that an author this talented should not have books in every library in America.
zachkuhn's review
4.0
First 3/4 some of the most enjoyable nonfiction I've ever read. Last 1/4 is not my style, but still a great book.
pattydsf's review
5.0
“Say you have a ‘special child,’ which in the South means one between Downs 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 20, with the child's convulsions. There's something different about this child, the doctors say.”
I walked into my local library recently and a friend handed me this audiobook. She said that I really needed to read it. Stick with it, she said. It isn’t easy. I had no idea what I was in for. Mark Richard is not an author I had ever read before.
I am afraid that if I had picked up the actual book, I would have abandoned it long before I got to the end of the first chapter. Go back to the top of my review and reread those sentences above. That is how the book begins. I really didn’t get it at first. Second person narratives are so hard to read. The last one I read, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, was so unlike anything else I have read that I kept at it. In the case of House of Prayer #2, it was the narrator who drew me in.
As I learned in his memoir, Richard has a radio announcer’s voice and I could not resist his reading. I took my friend’s advice and stuck with it. Once I got used to the point of view, I was hooked and listened every chance I got.
This is a memoir that is fascinating and scary at the same time. Richard writes so well, that I felt I was there. That was both good and bad. There were moments when I could hardly listen to Richard tell his story. How did he live through all of this, I kept thinking. There is much in Richard’s tale that strained my belief system. There are many times that his life seemed at an end. His connections to God and faith are a bit bizarre, but I could not discount them. He believes and that is what is important.
If you are someone who reads memoirs regularly, don’t miss this one. If you like stories, fiction or non-fiction, that draw you in, shake you around and change you, you should look for this autobiography. This is a book that is promoted by one reader to another saying, “You must read this.” If you are a reader who relies on serendipity to find books for you, I am saying, “You must read this.” Give it a few pages so that you get Richard in your head, but you will not be sorry.
I walked into my local library recently and a friend handed me this audiobook. She said that I really needed to read it. Stick with it, she said. It isn’t easy. I had no idea what I was in for. Mark Richard is not an author I had ever read before.
I am afraid that if I had picked up the actual book, I would have abandoned it long before I got to the end of the first chapter. Go back to the top of my review and reread those sentences above. That is how the book begins. I really didn’t get it at first. Second person narratives are so hard to read. The last one I read, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, was so unlike anything else I have read that I kept at it. In the case of House of Prayer #2, it was the narrator who drew me in.
As I learned in his memoir, Richard has a radio announcer’s voice and I could not resist his reading. I took my friend’s advice and stuck with it. Once I got used to the point of view, I was hooked and listened every chance I got.
This is a memoir that is fascinating and scary at the same time. Richard writes so well, that I felt I was there. That was both good and bad. There were moments when I could hardly listen to Richard tell his story. How did he live through all of this, I kept thinking. There is much in Richard’s tale that strained my belief system. There are many times that his life seemed at an end. His connections to God and faith are a bit bizarre, but I could not discount them. He believes and that is what is important.
If you are someone who reads memoirs regularly, don’t miss this one. If you like stories, fiction or non-fiction, that draw you in, shake you around and change you, you should look for this autobiography. This is a book that is promoted by one reader to another saying, “You must read this.” If you are a reader who relies on serendipity to find books for you, I am saying, “You must read this.” Give it a few pages so that you get Richard in your head, but you will not be sorry.
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