Feasting the Heart - by Reynolds Price (Paperback)

About the Book

Award-winning writer Reynolds Price captures the small but telling moments of everyday life in a wonderfully varied collection of personal essays originally presented on NPR.

Book Synopsis

Ranging from his experiences as a writer to topics of faith and racial intolerance, Reynolds Price's stories from National Public Radio's All Things Considered showcase the author's consistent talent for lyrical prose and insightful observations--and all those stories are now compiled here in The Feasting Heart.

In the fall of 1993, Alice Winkler of National Public Radio's "Morning Edition" asked Reynolds Price to write a short story for a Christmas morning broadcast. This assignment would result in NPR's inviting Price to join its varied group of commentators on "All Things Considered." The laws of radio require a concision that became a welcome new discipline for Price; these are all the personal essays which he has broadcast since July 25, 1995.

Whether recounting events from his past, examining the details of his current experience as a writer, teacher, traveler, and general witness of the world, Price demonstrates in his direct prose that a writer can instantly connect with his audience. He discusses a few predictable topics--family, the poisonous mysteries of racial intolerance, and faith--but he also deals with new matters: capital punishment, Gone With the Wind, his adventures while navigating an immensely inaccessible America in a wheelchair; and he provides a memorable piece on childlessness.

Throughout, Price never loses sight of the origin of either the word or the spirit of the essay--the French word connotes a try, an attempt --and each piece here is a well-formed, revealing, often amusing, and refreshing foray into a moment unlike any we've encountered in other forms from him. We're unlikely to read more thought-provoking work from a commentator for a great time to come.

Review Quotes

Publishers Weekly A panoramic glimpse of the writer's mind at work...a delight...an ideal introduction to this important novelist.

Andrea Grande-Capone Associated Press A literary offering of great depth and intensity.

Max B. Baker The Fort Worth Star-Telegram Writing in clear-eyed, conversational prose, Price reaffirms his faith in mankind by remembering the healing power of everyday moments, no matter how big or small.

Nicole Brodeur The Seattle Times An American master of words.

About the Author

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.