Reynolds Price: A Long and Happy Life/Readings

by Reynolds Price

On its initial publication in 1962, Eudora Welty said of A Long and Happy Life, "Reynolds Price is the most impressive new writer I've come across in a long time. His is a first-rate talent and we are lucky that he has started so young to write so well. Here is a fine novel."From 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 captivated millions of readers since its publication twenty-five years ago and its subsequent translation into fifteen languages. On the triumphant publication of Kate Vaiden, his most recent novel, in 1986, there was almost no review that -- praising the new book to the skies -- didn't also mention in glowing terms the reviewer's fond recollection of the marvelous first novel, the troubled love story of Rosacoke Mustian and Wesley Beavers and its beautifully evoked vision of rural North Carolina. It is a pleasure now to restore to print the clothbound edition of this truly enduring work as a companion volume to his brilliant book of essays, A Common Room, published simultaneously.

Audio Cassette

Published January 1, 1987

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

[Emily Balog · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first venture into reading a work by Reynolds Price, a North Carolina author (b. 1933 in Macon) who attended Dook and went on to a Rhodes Scholarship at Merton College at Oxford. His NC roots, scholarly pedigree and position as Dook English professor led me to check out the collection of his books at the library. He's quite prolific so I selected his first novel as a jumping off point.

A Long and Happy Life is situated round about rural Warrenton, NC, up I-85 toward the VA border. It tells the story of a young love between the wild, motorcycle-riding Navy boy Wesley Beavers and the meek duty-filled Rosacoke Mustian, against a backdrop of a rural, law-abiding, God-fearing community.

Price's writing style is run-on with unusual sentence structure, like storytelling. This added a new layer of complexity to the relationships and society he describes. Wonderful, heart-wrenching and tender. Highly recommended.

[Matt Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the author's first novel, and it's very good. Imagine Faulkner's writing if he hadn't been a drunk. That's this.