House of Prayer No. 2

House of Prayer No. 2 (2011) by Mark Richard. This memoir is an extraordinary work. For one thing, it's told in the second-person, present tense, a very unusual choice. For another, it's very short, barely 200 pages. For another, it describes an extraordinary life. Richard has lived a wonderfully picaresque existence, made all the more interesting by the fact that he had a disability (his hip bones had to be operated on multiple times when he was a kid, and later replaced when he became an adult). Through all his trials, he managed to work a multitude of jobs, until his writing ability made a career for him and he started working in TV and motion pictures. It's a wonderful story of success in the face of adversity, and it's written in an incomparable style, unlike anything I've read before. Makes me curious to read more by this author. Grade: A