Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction
by Melissa Fay Greene
List Price:
Our Price: $4.14
You Save: $13.85 (77%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $1.95 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Melissa Fay GreeneEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-08-29
ISBN: 0306815176
Number of pages: 368
Publisher: Da Capo Press
Book Reviews of Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction
Book Review: The Downside of Eden
Summary: 5 Stars
Coastal Georgia is a frequent destination for me. Whenever I have to be away from it, I am planning the next time I'll be able to smell the marsh, feel the sand in my shoes and hear the musical voices of the residents. I have been to Darien many, many times, but my first visit was in 1994, long after the initial events in this book took place. Reading PRAYING FOR SHEETROCK was educational, to say the least. What Melissa Fay Greene does in her narrative is show you the different Dariens - the black experience is (or was) far different from the one enjoyed by whites in this historic community.
It is said that there are two sides to every story; in SHEETROCK, there are significantly more than that to be found. McIntosh County is a prism, and the truth is refracted through every possible angle. Greene tries not to take sides. She offers as much of a journalistic approach as possible, starting with the early 1970s and the corruption in the local government, and ending with the changes in the life of Thurnell Alston, the man who, with others in his community, stood up to the status quo.
At times, Greene's writing approaches the poetic. Her use of language is nothing less than stunning. She evokes the true beauty of this part of the world, and reminds me, even in the bleak passages, why I love it so. Few other authors I've read have been so successful in bringing the environment to mind, even when describing the mosquitos and choking dust on a dry day. Almost anyone can write a beautiful sunset; it's a truly excellent writer who can narrate a lack of plumbing and make it interesting.
PRAYING FOR SHEETROCK may not prove to be interesting to everyone who reads it. Those who have ties to the McIntosh County will get the most out of it, I believe, and others may be bored. As someone who loves Coastal Georgia, and American history, I was fascinated.
Summary of Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction
Finalist for the 1991 National Book Award and a New York Times Notable book, Praying for Sheetrock is the story of McIntosh County, a small, isolated, and lovely place on the flowery coast of Georgia--and a county where, in the 1970s, the white sheriff still wielded all the power, controlling everything and everybody. Somehow the sweeping changes of the civil rights movement managed to bypass McIntosh entirely. It took one uneducated, unemployed black man, Thurnell Alston, to challenge the sheriff and his courthouse gang--and to change the way of life in this community forever. "An inspiring and absorbing account of the struggle for human dignity and racial equality" (Coretta Scott King)
Despite what it said in the New York Times or the Congressional Record, not everybody in America got the word right away about the civil rights movement. Thus it was that well into the 1970s, McIntosh County in backwoods Georgia remained a place where the black majority still had never elected one of their own to any county office, where black kids were bused away from the white school, and where the white county sheriff had his hand in every racket there was. Praying for Sheetrock is the saga of how, thanks to the leadership of a black shop-steward-turned-county-commissioner named Thurnell Alston, together with the aid of a cadre of idealistic Legal Services lawyers (Melissa Greene was one of their paralegals) this situation began to change. The story, written as grippingly as a novel, is charged with twists that only nonfiction can deliver; for example, Alston, for all the brave good he did, ultimately got caught in a federal sting and went to jail while the corrupt sheriff walked. This is, writes Greene, a story of "large and important things happening in a very little place."
African-American & Black Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in African-American & Black Books
Leaving Birmingham: Notes of a Native Sonby Paul Hemphill
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1995-01-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Price in other shops:
Wynton Marsalis: Skain's Domain: A Biographyby Leslie Gourse
Schirmer Trade Books; Published: 1999-09-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $52.40
The Miles Davis Companion: Four Decades of Commentaryby Gary Carner
Schirmer Trade Books; Published: 1996-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.36
Kaffir Boy in Americaby Mathabane
Free Press; Published: 1990-08-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.35
Price in other shops:
LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASSby Frederick Douglass
Scribner Paper Fiction; Published: 1962-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $59.57
My American Journey My American Journeyby Colin L. Powell, Joseph Persico
Turtleback Books: A Division of Sanval; Published: 1996-01; School & Library Binding; Book
Best price: $81.38
Black Titan: A. G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaireby Carol Jenkins, Elizabeth Gardner Hines
One World/Ballantine; Published: 2003-12-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $29.55
Extraordinary, Ordinary People: A Memoir of Familyby Condoleezza Rice
Random House Audio; Published: 2010-10-12; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $20.27
Price in other shops:
Now the Hell Will Start: One Soldier's Flight from the Greatest Manhunt of World WarIIby Brendan I. Koerner
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2009-05-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $0.01
Price in other shops:
On My Own at 107: Reflections on Life Without Bessieby Sarah Louise Delany, Amy Hill Hearth, Brian M. Kotzky
Harper San Francisco; Published: 1997-02; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $4.63
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
White Flight: Atlanta and the Making of Modern Conservatism (Politics and Society in Twentieth-Century America)by Kevin M. Kruse
Princeton University Press; Published: 2007-07-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $15.20
Price in other shops:
Looking Backward from 2000 to 1887by Edward Bellamy
CreateSpace; Published: 2011-01-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.53
Price in other shops:
The Triumph of Voting Rights in the Southby Charles S. Bullock III, Ronald Keith Gaddie
University of Oklahoma Press; Published: 2009-11-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $50.59
Price in other shops:
Cornerstones of Georgia History: Documents That Formed the StateUniversity of Georgia Press; Published: 1995-08-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.00
Price in other shops:
Turning Point: A Candidate, a State, and a Nation Come of Ageby Jimmy Carter
Times Books; Published: 1993-12-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.23
Price in other shops:
Babbitt (Bantam Classics)by Sinclair Lewis
Random House; Bantam Classics; Published: 1998-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.68
Price in other shops:
Looking Backward 2000-1887 (Oxford World's Classics)by Edward Bellamy
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2009-09-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.65
Price in other shops:
The Best War Ever: America and World War II (The American Moment)by Michael C.C. Adams
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1993-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $12.98
Price in other shops:
The Lost Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, 1900-1918by Ruth Rosen
The Johns Hopkins University Press; Published: 1983-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $17.46
Price in other shops:
No Biking in the House Without a Helmetby Melissa Fay Greene
Farrar, Straus and Giroux; Published: 2011-04-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops: