Praying for Sheetrock

A National Book Award Finalist and a New York Times Notable Book, the true story of a black community standing up to a white, corrupt lawman.
"An inspiring and absorbing account of the struggle for human dignity and racial equality." —Coretta Scott King

From award-winning author and journalist Melissa Fay Greene, 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—Tom Poppell—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.

"Highly original." —New York Times

"A superb account of life and struggle in a tiny place. Because of its themes and the brilliant way the author has handled them, this book could stand as a metaphor for the halting American effort to become something better than we have been." —Los Angeles Times
Includes Reader's Guide