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A Long and Happy Life
A Long and Happy Life
A Long and Happy Life
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A Long and Happy Life

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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.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherScribner
Release dateDec 21, 1987
ISBN9781439105436
A Long and Happy Life
Author

Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price (1933–2011) was born in Macon, North Carolina. Educated at Duke University and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at Merton College, Oxford University, he taught at Duke beginning in 1958 and was the James B. Duke Professor of English at the time of his death. 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 is 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.

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Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Rosacoke Mustian is a young woman in 1950s rural North Carolina. She has been in love with Wesley Beavers for the past eight years, since they were children, and has been waiting without much success for him to reciprocate. Wesley, seemingly intent on enjoying the pleasures of a single young man, is about to be discharged from the Navy. He plans to remain in Norfolk and sell motorcycles.While waiting, Rosa’s life revolves around her family and their trials – death, childbirth, both simultaneously – and small town life. The question is how long she’ll wait for Wesley – until her hand is forced and she must decide. This is a novel of quiet strength, beautifully written.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A wonderful, beautiful book about a young southern woman in love with a wandering, afraid to commit, man. Price's style is to die for.

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A Long and Happy Life - Reynolds Price

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