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)

“"In a cautionary tale as wonderfully knotty as a plank of Georgia pine, Greene forcefully marks the danger in confusing ideals with those who preach them and thereby extends the import of her story far beyond the boundaries of little McIntosh County."”

"[Greene] writes with the lyricism of a poet and the skill of a novelist.... A rare reading experience." "A fascinating account of the black community's gradual political awakening." "An exciting book about the failures of idealism in America in the last decade and a half.... Poetic and picaresque."

MELISSA FAY GREENE is a journalist and the award-winning author of "Praying for Sheetrock, The Temple Bombing", and "Last Man Out". She has written for "The New Yorker, The Washington Post", and "The New York Times Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Newsweek, Redbook", Salon.com, and others. She lives in Atlanta with her husband and children, two of whom were adopted from Ethiopia.

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)

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