A Writer’s Prayers

You don’t know what to expect when you crack open the cover of Mark Richard’s House of Prayer No. 2, but you’ll later realize it’s all right there in the title and the subtitle: “A Writer’s Journey Home.”

You immediately notice the consistent use of the second-person voice throughout the 200-page book. You find this odd way to tell a memoir somehow soothing, not repetitive. You just can’t put it down. Richard spans years in a sentence, then zooms in suddenly to show you the tiniest, most interesting detail. He has the habit of walloping you with the simplest of statements. You will re-read many parts just to hear them again in your head. You’ll ask people to sit still so you can read them a passage out loud. You’ll be that astounded.

And you’ll laugh. Like when you get to this part: “You have been traveling on Esquire’s expense account for a couple months now, and it’s hard to explain where you have been, and even harder still to admit that you never interviewed Tom Waits.” But you’ll find sadness and pain inside these pages, too, quite a lot, which is only tolerable because of Richard’s nimble storytelling and this voice. It’s an eerie, all-knowing voice that you just can’t shake.

You’ll marvel at what’s become of a Lake Charles-born “special child” and all that he’s experienced despite the “bad hips” his doctors tried to warn him about. House of Prayer No. 2 is more than a memoir of one person. It’s a Southern story, an adventure story, a literary story, a story about the failures and achievements of family and faith. It’s probably even mostly true, hard as that is to believe sometimes.

When you’ve finished Richard’s memoir, you’ll seek out the rest of his award-winning writing, which includes two short story collections, a novel and the movie that he wrote, Stop-Loss. You’ll find yourself eager to witness all of Richard’s future work, whatever form it might take.