Noble Norfleet

by Reynolds Price

Having given voice in previous novels to the extraordinary Kate Vaiden, Blue Calhoun, and Roxanna Slade, Reynolds Price -- one of America's most respected men of letters -- adds Noble Norfleet to his gallery of compelling portraits. A few days before Noble Norfleet's eighteenth birthday, his family suffers a violent catastrophe. The sole survivor, Noble throws himself into a reckless affair with his Spanish teacher, whose husband is fighting in Vietnam. When Noble graduates, he enlists as well and, while serving as an army medic, experiences a mysterious vision that seems tied to uncanny events in his recent past. Not until thirty years later -- after a life short on friends and troubled by a compulsion to worship women's bodies -- is Noble challenged to rethink the decades-old mystery of his family tragedy. Faced with an ominous choice, Noble finally comes to accept an enormous duty he's long tried to ignore. Soon, perhaps for the first time, his future seems hopeful.

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

322 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Reynolds Price was born in Macon, North Carolina in 1933. Educated at Duke University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Merton College, Oxford University. He taught at Duke since 1958 and was James B. Duke Professor of English.

His first short stories, and many later ones, are published in his Collected Stories. A Long and Happy Life was published in 1962 and won the William Faulkner Award for a best first novel. Kate Vaiden was published in 1986 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Good Priest's Son in 2005 was his fourteenth novel. Among his thirty-seven volumes are further collections of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations. Price was a member of both the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and his work has been translated into seventeen languages.

Photo courtesy of Reynolds Price's author page on Amazon.com

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brutal story about a family. Noble's mother acts out her craziness in a brutal way and his life is permanently affected. Price has a knack for writing about his home state of North Carolina. I feel a strong sense of place on every page. Not surprisingly, Noble's sense of women and sex is part of the unraveling of his life. Each of his relationships is driven by sex or loyalty or yearning and this essentially forms the heart of the novel. Reynolds Price writes fairly straightforward sentences, and they are beautiful. The sentences are what pulled me through this consistently tragic novel. Not exactly a vacation read, but I read it in a remote cabin in a wilderness area. The starkness and beauty of both the book and the setting complemented each other.

[Jim Grimsley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have read at least a dozen books by Reynolds Price, including the first two novels that were so incandescently drawn, A Long and Happy Life and A Generous Man. I will review one of those later, maybe, to counteract my review of this book. Coming from late in his career, this book is memorable for the unconstrained nature of the plot, the sheer strangeness of it, and the sense that the book is sometimes meandering and sometimes babbling. He survived cancer to write some important novels beyond his heyday. This one is simply off-key in most ways, from the sexual content to the sad vision of race and gender it presents. Not indicative of what Price could do when he was working with all his focus.

[Margie · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK book. Story of man's life.

[Haven Fairfield · Rating 2 out of 5]

Noble Norfleet's mom spared him his life. She left him asleep as she killed his brother and sister in another part of the house. His father had long since abandoned them. Noble is recounting his life to us and most of it is spent dealing with this central tragedy.

Noble has had visions at times in life. He wonders if these visions were signs to point him in a particular direction. Otherwise, he has no direction. There times when reading this book that I wished I had a vision because I could not figure out what direction this book was supposed to be going. I'm still not quite sure what happened.

The book, like its central character, is not without its merits. The characters are intriguing, if less than fascinating. The setting is thoroughly Southern. Unfortunately, it just all seems so aimless at times.

I'm reminded of Holden Caufield. He was aimless too but endlessly more fascinating that Noble Norfleet. Noble lacks the brutal honestly of Holden's internal monologue. Instead, he is constantly wondering if and what if and maybe and what could have. This character draws few conclusions.

Sex figures prominently in this book. His sexual education begins with a Spanish teacher in high school. He shares a homosexual relationship with his pastor. He visits the occasional prostitute along the way.
Noble is convinced his worship of women is overbearing and ultimately drives them away.

The book ends on an unexpectedly sweet and tender note. Even so, I find it hard to recommend this book. It is too unfocused.

[Rena Mayberry]

Just as with many other marvelously talented authors with enormous lists of top-drawer writing, this one did not stand up to the stature of Reynolds Price previous long fiction.
It was published a bit late in his career, 2002. In addition to character depiction, the narrator
loads us with opinions such as how dangerous life is for American children, for example. He experiences visions that seem intent on directing his directionless life.

There are excellent characters, who do incomprehensible things.Themes of redemption, temptation and BAD parenting dominate.
Price has always used the words appreciate and patience to describe his feelings about some women. Here he goes into worship of them, sexually.


I've read most of the fiction, and much of the religious writing of this fine author and thinker. I was saddened at his recent death, and certainly will forgive him one work that disapointed me as I read on and on, fascinated.

[Myrna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up at a friend's house and couldn't put it down. So much happens to the protagonist, Noble Norfleet, that I kept wanting to know what would occur next. I was frustrated by Noble's passivity and didn't buy the visions that he had, but I still wanted to understand what made him tick. Virtually everything about my life and the way I view the world is exactly opposite to the way this young white Southern male experiences his life in the 1960s onward, but I enjoyed being drawn into such a different point of view. The descriptions, especially of Vietnam, were so vivid that it really felt like a memoir, rather than fiction. I'm going to try reading another one of Reynolds Price's books to see if his writing style was unique to this book or is consistent throughout.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

this book was recommended to me by a librarian at the MV library. one i trust as we both enjoy sorrowful books. but this book is really odd. i liked it but did not love it. the main character, noble, is well defined and is interesting in the choices he takes. all the other characters are very weird as they each end up having horrific stories. you get to know them and at some point they tell you their history and every single character has horrible, horrible things done to them. like incestual rape by everyone in your family bad. goodness! and it almost got to a point of redundency of evil. how could every character have a horrific story? i don't know.

[Melanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I learned from this book is that even Reynolds Price can disappoint me. One must unconditionally love Mr. Price to forgive him for this story line. Although I think the book is good, I must wonder where he found these characters. It is depressing and Noble crossed paths with some really strange and tormented folks. I have been "pushing Price" to a friend. I hope he does not start with this novel.

[Kristi Brendle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holy wayward sexual deviancy, Batman! I'm not, nor have ever been, a hyper-sexual teenage boy, but the author clearly is working thru his deviant teenage manipulation & guilt. If you can overlook that, which is difficult, the tale of the psychotic murderous mother & latently guilty son is gratuitous at worst, honest at best. His bizarre hallucinations & Eve-based sexual worship is overkill, but the ending leaves much to the imagination (unlike the rest of the tome).

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have admired Price's writing for many years, but somehow hadn't read this one. Alas, this one is a disappointment. The book is depressing, and I found the main character aimless. I still don't understand his take on life or sex. The writing is at times as beautiful as Price's other writing, but other times it is almost purple and lurid -- especially the many paragraphs about sex. I have high expectations for Price; this one didn't meet them. Read Blue Calhoun for a terrific Price novel.

[John R Urry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow, don't really know what to say.........didn't love it or hate it but I could not stop reading it. I wouldn't recommend this book, but I would not tell someone not to read it either........... Although after saying that, I will probably pick up another book by Reynolds Price. Sorry if this is confusing, but after finishing this book I feel a bit of mixed feelings as you can tell.

[Marguerite Hargreaves · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've liked almost everything I've read by Reynolds Price, but this made me not want to get out of bed -- ever again. It's that depressing. Worse, throughout the book, it felt like Price was trying too hard.

[Salsadancer · Rating 1 out of 5]

Book about nothing. Except a 17+ year-old boy sexually satisfying himself. Too much information that didn't add to the mundane story.

6/13/2016 This book is mundane and about nothing I did not realize I had read it 13 years ago until I went to log it in. What a waste of time!!!!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Price is always so promising, with his uncompromising language and languid, hazy realism. However, this novel didn't seem to go anywhere unexpected. Still, Price's original turns of the phrase are always worth reading in today's world of re-run literary devices.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

i found this book a little too depressing.

[Shirley · Rating 3 out of 5]

example of an amazing "full circle" plot

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Different and good, but it started to drag for the last third or so.

[Clarrosso · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tedious and brilliant both. Some outstanding prose, but the storyline at other times was most disappointing. Maybe a bit too much like real-life.