Product Details
Scribner, June 2008
eBook, 224 pages
ISBN-10: 1439107750
ISBN-13: 9781439107751
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Description
Reynolds Price has long been one of America's most acclaimed and accomplished men of letters. In A Whole New Life he presents his most intimate story yet -- a memoir as compelling as any work of the imagination.
In 1984, a large cancer was discovered in Price's spinal cord. Here, he recounts his battle to withstand and recover from this devastating affliction. He charts the first puzzling symptoms, three surgeries, the radiation that paralyzes his lower body, the occasionally comic trials of rehab, the steady rise of pain and reliance on drugs, and his discovery of biofeedback and hypnosis. Beyond the particulars, Price illuminates larger concerns, such as the gratitude he feels toward family and friends and (some) doctors, the abundant return of his powers as a writer, and the "now appalling, now astonishing grace of God." More than the portrait of one person in crisis, A Whole New Life offers honest insight, realistic encouragement, and authentic inspiration -- and stands as one of Price's crowning achievements.
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BooklistEven about disease and pain, Price speaks beautifully. A special book.
Chicago TribuneAn achingly eloquent account...By turns stirring and funny, anguished and joyful.
Daily News (New York)Price writes sincerely and openly, without a trace of self-pity... a clear-eyed book that is as realistic as a sawed-off shotgun. It is wise, and humbling, and it bears reading before it is needed.
Los Angeles Times Book ReviewThe man who emerges from these pages is feisty, gritty, angry...and most appealing.
Reynolds Price's Books
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Ardent SpiritsIn his third volume of memoir, Reynolds Price explores six crucial years of his life -- his departure from home in 1955 to spend three years as a...Read More
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Long and Happy LifeFROM ITS DAZZLING OPENING PAGE, WHICH ANNOUNCED THE appearance of a stylist of the first rank, to its moving close, this brief novel has charmed and...Read More
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Clear PicturesReynolds Price, novelist, poet, playwright and essayist, author of the bestseller Kate Vaiden and the recent Roxanna Slade, is one of the most...Read More -
A Perfect FriendIt feels like yesterday that Ben's mother died -- but it's really been a whole year. Still, he misses her so much the sadness keeps him awake at night....Read More
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Letter to a Man in the FireDoes God Exist and Does He Care?In April 1997 Reynolds Price received an eloquent letter from a reader of his cancer memoir, A Whole New Life. The...Read More
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The Good Priest's SonFlying home to New York after a much needed getaway abroad, private art conservator Mabry Kincaid learns that his downtown loft has been devastated by...Read More
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A Serious Way of WonderingWhen renowned novelist and poet Reynolds Price, one of Christianity's most eloquent outlaws, was invited to deliver the annual Peabody Lecture at...Read More
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Letter to a GodchildIn the year 2000 acclaimed author Reynolds Price became honorary godfather to Harper Peck Voll. As a christening gift, Price composed a letter to the...Read More
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The Collected StoriesFor more than four decades, Reynolds Price has been one of America's most distinguished writers, with a career remarkable both for its virtuosity and...Read More
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Noble NorfleetHaving given voice in previous novels to the extraordinary Kate Vaiden, Blue Calhoun, and Roxanna Slade, Reynolds Price -- one of America's most...Read More
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A Perfect FriendA Moving Fable For Readers Of All Ages -- From National Book Critics Circle Award-Winning Author Reynolds PriceBen Barks loved elephants long before...Read More
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Feasting the HeartWhether recounting events from his past or examining the details of his current experience as a writer, teacher, traveler, and general witness of the...Read More
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A Great CircleHere, in a single volume for the first time, is the trilogy of novels in which Reynolds Price traces the paths of two families, the Mayfields and the...Read More
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Tongues of Angels"I'm as peaceful a man as you're likely to meet in America now, but this is about a death I may have caused. Not slowly over time by abuse or meanness...Read More
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Blue Calhoun"This starts with the happiest I ever was, though it brought down suffering on everybody near me. Short as it lasted and long ago, I've never laid it...Read More
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A Singular FamilyFOR THE FIRST TIME, THE ENTIRE MUSTIAN CYCLE IN ONE VOLUME, WITH A PREFACE BY THE AUTHORRosacoke Mustian initially "stood up, live from her first...Read More
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ROXANNA SLADEFrom one of America's most esteemed men of letters comes a new and vivid recounting of life in the American South. Not since Reynolds Price's...Read More
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The Collected PoemsThis volume presents the full range of Reynolds Price's poetic accomplishment over the past thirty-six years. His first three collections are brought...Read More
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Kate Vaiden0ne of the most feisty, spellbinding and engaging heroines in modern fiction captures the essence of her own life in this contemporary American odyssey...Read More
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THREE GOSPELSA decade after he published his famousfirst novel, A Long and Happy Life, ReynoldsPrice began a serious study of the Hebrew andGreek narratives which...Read More
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PROMISE OF RESTIn 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...Read More
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Source of LightHere is the second volume of A Great Circle, the highly acclaimed Mayfield family trilogy, from one of America's literary treasures.Though a novel...Read More
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Surface of EarthPublished in 1975, The Surface of Earth is the monumental narrative that charts the slow, inextricable twining of the Mayfield and Kendal families. Set...Read More
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Collected Stories of Reynolds PriceFor over three decades, Reynolds Price has been one of America's most distinguished writers, in a career that has been remarkable both for its...Read More
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Foreseeable FutureReynolds Price's long and distinguished career has been remarkable both for his virtuosity and for the variety of forms he has embraced -- novels,...Read More
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