One test of a good book is this: does it change the way you live your life or how you look at people. Reynolds Price, professor of English at Duke University, explores in this work a theme that hits everyone but that we don't often consider, or wish to consider, that is, the effect of major trauma on one's life and the life of one's friends, and perhaps everyone else around you.

RP tells the story of his own experience with spinal cancer in a bold, unflinching, but intensely personal way. One of the themes of the work is how profoundly a patient is affected by the attitudes and communication habits of medical care professionals. While he has tremendous praise for those who showed loving concern for him in his difficult times, he also wonders why some were so callous. For instance, he was informed of his tumor by two doctors while lying on a gurney in a crowded hallway. "What would those tow splendidly trained men have lost if they'd waited to play their trump til I was back in the private room for which Blue Cross was paying our mutual employer, Duke [University], a sizable mint in my behalf?"

Also wonderful in this book are his lessons/recommendation for those who have undergone similar tragedies such as this: "Generous people - true practical saints, some of them boring as root canals - are waiting to give you everything on Earth but your main want, which is simply THE PERSON YOU USED TO BE."

For me at least, this book helped change how I look at people, and I hope, will give me strength to deal with the traumas that will undoubtedly come someday to me and those I love.

I took a long time to read this book so that I could think about all that Mr. Price said, there was so much--about being a person struck down with a "catastrophic" illness, what it is like to lose the ability to walk or do anything else with your legs, about having cancer and wondering when it is coming back, navigating a large medical complex, about being a different person because of it all, about embracing that different person rather than resisting him, about what is most important about caregivers, doctors, nurses and friends. (Mr. Price has awesome friends who basically would go to the ends of the earth for him). I learned so much and found Mr Price's writing to be so honest and earthy and insightful. i hated coming to the final chapter. but loved what it had to say. i would recommend this book to everyone, it is a wonderful look at one's own humanity and that of others. Please also read "Letter to a Man in the Fire." after you have read "A whole new life." I read them the other way around, but it is more meaningful to read "a whole new life" first. Every member of every medical discipline should read this book--nurses, doctors, physical therapists, and students of all disciplines. As an oncologist, I learned a lot about how patients feel and what they might need.

I first read this in 1995, during the long week prior to surgery to remove a growing mass of cancer that, thankfully, has never revisited me. Aside from, once again, being awed by Price's magic with otherwise common words, it was especially comforting to read the very heart of a man whose prose I had read and long admired, someone who had survived a similar experience. Price is, hands down, my favorite writer.

OK, this is yet another great autobio by a writer that I admire: it displays a fabulous power of memory - one of the traits that Nabokov said was a sign of creativitiy - and is written in a secure and elegant style. Its portraits are sharp and unlike any that I have ever read, leavened with enormous subtlety and humor. This makes it a truly unique read.

Interestingly, not a whole lot happens in this autobio outside of personal growth, ambition, and his father overcoming alcoholism. Instead, the author muses over a rich life that started with an average family. There are deep relationships and a great deal of love, ruminations over the racism and sensitivity of his southern upbringing, and the outlines of his concerns with art. It is a bit annoying that he plays the pronoun game with those he loved: obviously, they were either men or men and women, so why not say it?

If you like a measured and calm set of vivid recollections by an individual of great literary talent, you enjoy this very much. Very very much.

Reynold's beautiful memoir contains memorable characters that many readers will find perched somewhere in their family tree. The prose pleads to be read aloud.

Reynolds Price was born in North Carolina. He has lived here his whole life, excluding four years in Europe. He is rooted in Southern ways and Southern life. With Clear Pictures, we understand how his rural beginnings shaped the life that he has made. We begin to understand the basis of all the wonderful characters he has shown us.

In this sweet children's story, Reynolds Price tackles one of life's most difficult subjects, a youngster's loss of a parent. Ben, who is eleven, after the death of his mother is left alone with only his father and a very old dog Hilda for company. And a couple of friends. "He was the only boy in school who had a girl for his best friend, and he could usually smile at Robin's [his cousin] joking. After his mother died, though, Ben's outlook changed; and he went on feeling sad for a long time." Rather than attempt to answer the unaswerable, Mr. Price lets Ben tell his story. And a fine and moving story it is. In this marvelous little tale, Ben prays for an elephant, the animal his mother has taught him to draw. "See, there's really no question at all that elephants are better than people. They always take care of their young, they never kill anything unless they have to, and they talk to each other over miles of distance in voices so deep we can't even hear them." This lad may be onto something here in my favorite passage from the story.

The characters are all well drawn and completely believable-- from Ben's friend Dunk to his father who sometimes handles his own grief by getting drunk. Ater all, malt may do more than Milton cab to justify God's ways. . . Ben's grief for his mother and loneliness are palpable. The story, however, never becomes maudlin. Ben copes and survives; and there is not a "grief counselor" within a thousand miles.

No one writing today is better with words than Mr. Price. His evocative, concise language is both beautiful and moving. I bet children love this story. This adult certainly did.

It's been a year since Ben's mother died, but he misses her daily. His only consolation is his love for elephants, which his mother loved too - his involvement in the life of a special elephant who has been a survivor brings a bond to both which can heal in this unusual story.

For those who like Reynolds Price's prose, (and I count myself among them), be warned that the novels do not prepare one for the passion and depth of these poems. Some of the poems are religious; others are sexual, but almost all of them are startling in their intensity. I recommend this book with all my heart. But be aware that this book will require some work. Are you willing to buy a book that might well change your life?

He is a genius and through this book we can get a closer look at what makes him tick. We gain insight through this work into the mind of a literary giant and we also realize that he is the Southern Gentleman that we all admire.

Have you read a bit of Irish Apocrypha? Or the Hungarian "folk Bible"? or the religious tales at the end of the Grimm Brothers? Romulus Linney has taken the folk tales of Jesus and breathed new life into them. Like their sources, the tales are delightfully irreverently reverent - a wonderful counterbalance to the overly serious search for the historical Jesus that is in vogue with Bible scholars of our day. Unbutton your shirt, kick off your shoes and have a bit of fun with this delightful book.

Reynolds Price is a magician with a pen. He is one of the last true poets of our generation. RP uses so few words to bring us closer to his world, his emotions. All who read this collection will understand that we make a mark on life as skates make a mark on ice.

I read excerpts from it each time I sit on our own front porch. The photograph's beckon me to visit the places where they were taken and the literary excerpts invite me to read the books from which they were borrowed. An absolutely charming book

Having read this book, I can't for the life of me comprehend why it is no longer in print. In addition to an introductory essay that aspiring storytellers of all stripes could benefit from-novelists, short storyists, playwrights, etc.-it contains fresh translations of Bible tales we all thought we knew from Sunday school. In Price's hands these once-familiar tales become strangely exotic, as though we were reading them for the first time. Yet their clarity of language and immediacy of purpose inspire and illuminate our understanding, making them especially accessible for those who see the King James Version a beautiful but archaic piece of poetry.

Price's translations of Mark and John in his THREE GOSPELS led me to seek out this hard-to-find volume. Though known for his fine fiction, Price is shortchanging us with his all too infrequent forays into the world of biblical literature. After finishing THREE GOSPELS and A PALPABLE GOD, one wishes Price would undertake his own translation of the entire Old and New Testaments and cast a new light on a book sadly seen as old and dusty by so many.

Price's greatest achievement here is his ability to so seamlessly weave a complex and substantial narrative with a simple set of plot occurences. The characters are inclusive and inviting, complex and pure. Overall this is one of Price's finest works, surely to be enjoyed by anyone familiar or unfamiliar with his writing. The sights and sounds of the south come off the page and play to all of the reader's senses. An enjoyable read and experience.