Feasting the Heart
Fifty-two Commentaries for the Air
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- $10.99
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 1995, NPR's All Things Considered commissioned acclaimed Southern novelist Price (Kate Vaiden; Roxanna Slade; etc.) to contribute occasional editorial commentaries on any subject he chose. The results, along with an earlier Christmas story written for NPR's Morning Edition, are collected here, voicing Price's thoughts on topics ranging from the movies to the writing life to family relations. Recurring themes that he explores with particularly compelling insight include the cultural and emotional blessings of a small-town Southern boyhood, the difficultiesDand surprising advantagesDof being physically disabled (Price has been confined to a wheelchair for about 15 years after a bout with spinal cancer), and the richness of his experiences as both a student and a teacher. Price displays an impressive talent for using few words to convey a great deal, as he does in "The Last Great Weeper," where, musing on his tendency to cry at unexpected moments, he concludes that he is moved to tears by seeing "our kind at the highest pitch of skill and luck... those moments where somebody gets something right. Exactly right, the rarest event." Although ranging in tone from elegiac to angry, these pieces mostly evince a thoughtful optimism, chronicling and celebrating the small but significant pleasures of everyday life. While undoubtedly appealing to fans of Price's NPR broadcasts, this collection will also be of value to admirers of his fiction, as it offers a panoramic glimpse of the writer's mind at work. Price's readers and NPR listenersDeven if they heard these commentaries on the airDwill find it a delight. The brevity and broad range of these pieces also makes this an ideal introduction to this important novelist for readers who do not know his work. Author tour.
