A Whole New Life

A Whole New Life PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684872552
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
Reynolds Price has long been one of America's most acclaimed and accomplished men of letters -- the author of novels, stories, poems, essays, plays, and a memoir. In "A Whole New Life," however, he steps from behind that roster of achievements to present us with a more personal story, a narrative as intimate and compelling as any work of the imagination. In 1984, a large cancer was discovered in his spinal cord ("The tumor was pencil-thick and gray-colored, ten inches long from my neck-hair downward"). Here, for the first time, Price recounts without self-pity what became a long struggle to withstand and recover from this appalling, if all too common, affliction (one American in three will experience some from of cancer). He charts the first puzzling symptoms; the urgent surgery that fails to remove the growth and the radiation that temporarily arrests it (but hurries his loss of control of his lower body); the occasionally comic trials of rehab; the steady rise of severe pain and reliance on drugs; two further radical surgeries; the sustaining force of a certain religious vision; an eventual discovery of help from biofeedback and hypnosis; and the miraculous return of his powers as a writer in a new, active life. Beyond the particulars of pain and mortal illness, larger concerns surface here -- a determination to get on with the human interaction that is so much a part of this writer's much-loved work, the gratitude he feels toward kin and friends and some (though by no means "all)" doctors, the return to his prolific work, and the "now appalling, now astonishing grace of God." "A Whole New Life" offers more than the portrait of one brave person in tribulation; it offers honestinsight, realistic encouragement and inspiration to others who suffer the bafflement of catastrophic illness or who know someone who does or will.

A Whole New Life

A Whole New Life PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684872552
Category : Authors, American
Languages : en
Pages : 232

Get Book Here

Book Description
Reynolds Price has long been one of America's most acclaimed and accomplished men of letters -- the author of novels, stories, poems, essays, plays, and a memoir. In "A Whole New Life," however, he steps from behind that roster of achievements to present us with a more personal story, a narrative as intimate and compelling as any work of the imagination. In 1984, a large cancer was discovered in his spinal cord ("The tumor was pencil-thick and gray-colored, ten inches long from my neck-hair downward"). Here, for the first time, Price recounts without self-pity what became a long struggle to withstand and recover from this appalling, if all too common, affliction (one American in three will experience some from of cancer). He charts the first puzzling symptoms; the urgent surgery that fails to remove the growth and the radiation that temporarily arrests it (but hurries his loss of control of his lower body); the occasionally comic trials of rehab; the steady rise of severe pain and reliance on drugs; two further radical surgeries; the sustaining force of a certain religious vision; an eventual discovery of help from biofeedback and hypnosis; and the miraculous return of his powers as a writer in a new, active life. Beyond the particulars of pain and mortal illness, larger concerns surface here -- a determination to get on with the human interaction that is so much a part of this writer's much-loved work, the gratitude he feels toward kin and friends and some (though by no means "all)" doctors, the return to his prolific work, and the "now appalling, now astonishing grace of God." "A Whole New Life" offers more than the portrait of one brave person in tribulation; it offers honestinsight, realistic encouragement and inspiration to others who suffer the bafflement of catastrophic illness or who know someone who does or will.

A Long and Happy Life

A Long and Happy Life PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439109346
Category : American fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 225

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Book Description
The troubled love story of Rosacoke (Rosa) Mustian and Wesley Beavers in rural North Carolina.

Midstream

Midstream PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439183538
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 187

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Book Description
Originally published in hardcover in 2012.

Clear Pictures

Clear Pictures PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684847523
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
While recalling a childhood spent in the North Carolina countryside--the same landscape that has served as the setting for most of his many beloved novels--Reynolds Price shares powerful stories of the friends and family who helped shape his life into the man, and the writer, he is today.

Kate Vaiden

Kate Vaiden PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN: 9780684846941
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
0ne of the most feisty, spellbinding and engaging heroines in modern fiction captures the essence of her own life in this contemporary American odyssey born of red-clay land and small-town people. We meet Kate at a crucial moment in middle age when she begins to yearn to see the son she abandoned when she was seventeen. But if she decides to seek him, will he understand her? Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, Kate Vaiden is a penetrating psychological portrait of an ordinary woman in extraordinary circumstances, a story as joyous, tragic, comic and compelling as life itself.

Full Moon and Other Plays

Full Moon and Other Plays PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Theatre Communications Grou
ISBN: 9781559360647
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
The second collection of plays from award-winning novelist Reynolds Price. Delicate examinations of love, faith, family and race, written in the eloquent vernacular of Price's native North Carolina. Includes: Full Moon(1992), Early Dark (1977), and Private Contentment (1982). "A born playwright." --Time

Roxanna Slade

Roxanna Slade PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0684853736
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Price weaves a beguiling tale of the modern South and of a woman whose inner strengths feed a piercingly clear vision, forth-right hungers, and immense vitality.

Ardent Spirits

Ardent Spirits PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439166374
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 419

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Book Description
Award-winning novelist Reynolds Price provides “the best of his winning lot” (Dwight Garner, The New York Times) of memoirs—a vivid portrait of his life in the mid-1950s leading up to the publication of his brilliant first novel A Long and Happy Life. After two earlier autobiographical works—Clear Pictures and A Whole New Life—acclaimed writer Reynolds Price offers a full account of his life from the mid-1950s to the publication of his first novel in 1962. Oxford University and Britain—which had scarcely recovered from the severe demands of World War II—were places of enormous vitality for Price, both academic and personal. From spotting J. R. R. Tolkien on the street in Oxford to intimate dinners with W. H. Auden and Stephen Spender, young Price was welcomed into the company of the most respected intellectual and artistic circles. Fully entrenched in the culture of his era, Price unfailingly makes clear the connections between his experience and the great tradition of world literature. In lucid and frequently witty prose, Price offers full access to six years in the early adulthood of a rich life—“a gallery of portraits and sexual discovery” (The Weekly Standard ) and part of the great train of human accomplishment in which Price so ardently believed.

The Promise of Rest

The Promise of Rest PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1451603118
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
In this stunning and fully independent conclusion to A Great Circle, Reynolds Price tells the complex, moving story of a man's return home to die of AIDS and of the unexpected effect that his arrival -- and his death -- has on his family. Wade Mayfield's parents are separated, but for the remaining months of his life they and their friends come together to care for Wade with the love they can muster. They are unprepared, however, for the astonishing mystery Wade has prepared to reveal once he is gone -- a mystery that initiates the possible reunion of his parents and promises to continue the proud traditions of a complex, multiracial family.

Letter to a Godchild

Letter to a Godchild PDF Author: Reynolds Price
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0743293371
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 90

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Book Description
In the year 2000 acclaimed author Reynolds Price became honorary godfather to Harper Peck Voll. As a christening gift, Price composed a letter to the child, one intended as a brief guide for Harper's spiritual future. The letter sketched the crucial roles which faith had played in Price's own life and whittled down those lessons the author felt were most valuable. Later, Price realized that in a rapidly complicating world, his thoughts might also be useful for other children and their parents. Here, then, is an expanded version of the original letter -- an eloquent, thoughtful, and inspiring look at faith from one of the most revered American writers and most respected students of religion. In Letter to a Godchild, Price recounts how his life has been shaped by numerous and varied spiritual influences -- from the Bible-story books his parents bought him before he could read, to the childhood days spent exploring dense woods near his home (woods where he searched for arrowheads and spied on numerous wild animals), to Sundays at church with his father and mother, his travels around the world to magisterial structures as various as St. Peter's and the old Penn Station, and years of study both in and out of the classroom. With no trace of self-pity, he explains how his faith grew and deepened when in 1984 -- after a life of robust health -- he suffered a cancer that eventually led to paralysis of his lower body. Letter to a Godchild includes striking pictures of the buildings, objects, places, and events that have deepened the author's religious sensibility. He has also compiled a comprehensive section on further reading, looking, and listening that provides suggestions for books, art, and music that will entertain as well as enhance this volume. A profoundly intelligent and moving explication of religion and spirituality, Letter to a Godchild is an exhilarating experience for readers of all faiths.