Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction [Paperback]

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)

Melissa Fay Greeneis an award-winning author and journalist whose writing has appeared inThe New Yorker, theNew York Times, theWashington Post,The Atlantic Monthly, theChicago Tribune, andNewsweek. She is also the author ofLast Man Out: The Story of the Springhill Mine Disasterand the forthcomingThere Is No Me Without You(Bloomsbury Press). She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.