Praying for Sheetrock: A Work of Nonfiction

Having been born and raised in a small community in south Georgia, I have seen first-hand much of what was described in this book. I found this work to be incredibly interesting and moving. Have attitudes evolved and changed for the better in this area? Yes, fortunately. Are there still traces of this? Yes, unfortunately. But with excellent works such as this, we can only hope that the sad attitudes and discrimination that is so accurately described in Ms. Greene's work will become a part of our distant past.

There are a number of astonishing things about this provocative and evocative history of a remote coastal region of Georgia. Greene's chronicle is not simply an account of the institutional and covert racism that plagued one Southern county. Nor is it merely a biography of an unlikely black leader who led a momentous, peaceful rebellion against the white hierarchy before succumbing (at best) to his own credulity or (at worst) to the very corruption he criticized. Instead, "Praying for Sheetrock" is a composite oral history of a complex, deceptively quiet community during the 1970s and 1980s, where the social norms seemed old-fashioned, even quaint, and where even justifiably disgruntled citizens, both white and black, are restrained equally by an ill-defined sense of fear and by a desire to get along with their neighbors. At the time of the writing, McIntosh County had been dominated by a corrupt yet efficient, nepotistic yet clever "Old Boy" network, but it was also populated by an impoverished black community that, on the surface, seemed to have been on good terms with the local white authorities all through the chaos of the civil rights struggle. For many years, state and federal authorities suspected that county officials, led by Sheriff Tom Poppell, had been deeply implicated in jury tampering, tax evasion, bribery, illegal gambling, drug-running, prostitution, and even murder. Folks joked that Poppell "was the only sheriff in America who owned four houses, one with an airfield, and all on twelve thousand dollars a year." Yet every attempt by higher authorities (who regularly indicated on their reports that Poppell was to be considered "armed and dangerous") failed to nab the suspects. The victims of their never-indicted yet well-documented activities included tourists on the way through the county to family vacations in Florida as well as the local poor. The story of how this county eventually entered the late 20th century makes fascinating reading, and Greene's prose is an odd yet refreshing blend of journalism and lyricism. (It was included among the top 100 works of 20th-century American journalism by the New York University School of Journalism.) The reader is repeatedly stunned by her ability to persuade such a wide spectrum of local citizens--rich and poor, white and black, conservative and liberal--to talk at such length and with such honesty. Only at the very end of the book, in the acknowledgments, does it become clear that the author was far from a Janie-come-lately to the scene: she worked at Georgia Legal Services (which provided advice on civil liberties matters for the black community), was a witness to most of the events, and married one of the lawyers featured in the book. Rather than prejudicing her account, her experiences give the events an insider's perspective and make her relative objectivity all the more admirable. In fact, it's safe to say that only Greene could have written this book. And, much like "Midnight in

As a native Southerner, I can say that Melissa Faye Greene is spot-on in creating her characters. Her descriptions of people, places, scenes, sounds, and smells bring everything to life. I find myself saying again and again, "I've experienced that; I know that person." I gave this book to my teen-ager so she would understand why racial politics are what they are in the South; she's now re-reading it -- on her own -- for the third time. Parts of this story will make you laugh out loud; others will make you angry; throughout, there is the human struggle for dignity. If you want to understand the South of the current generation and the one before it, I recommend this book highly.

Once I picked this book up, I could not put it down. The way Greene chose to set up this book and play out the story is excellent. She laid out the characters and the scene in such a way to allow the reader to draw their own conclusions to the facts, giving equal voice to all parties. Though the heroes and villians are obvious, she doesn't portray them in a straight forward way. It opens with a complete and thorough description of everything surrounding the actual story, which gives the reader the feeling that they are there - a part of it - before all is said and done. The research she did on the subject to offer a tale told with all sides is commendable. Equally Fascinating and Intriguing!!

That about says it. My uncle from Gerogia remembers the stories of the southern area and the shame of the events. It's hard to determine which is the greater strength - the story itself or the characters. The citizens of Macintosh county override all the obstacles of bigotry, oppression and generations of poverty by simple faith. "When there's nothing left to do but stand, you just stand..." Excellent read.