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A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing Paperback – June 24, 2003

by Reynolds Price (Author)
4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 90 ratings
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Reynolds Price has long been one of America's most acclaimed and accomplished men of letters -- the author of novels, stories, poems, essays, plays, and a memoir. In A Whole New Life, however, he steps from behind that roster of achievements to present us with a more personal story, a narrative as intimate and compelling as any work of the imagination.

In 1984, a large cancer was discovered in his spinal cord ("The tumor was pencil-thick and gray-colored, ten inches long from my neck-hair downward"). Here, for the first time, Price recounts without self-pity what became a long struggle to withstand and recover from this appalling, if all too common, affliction (one American in three will experience some from of cancer). He charts the first puzzling symptoms; the urgent surgery that fails to remove the growth and the radiation that temporarily arrests it (but hurries his loss of control of his lower body); the occasionally comic trials of rehab; the steady rise of severe pain and reliance on drugs; two further radical surgeries; the sustaining force of a certain religious vision; an eventual discovery of help from biofeedback and hypnosis; and the miraculous return of his powers as a writer in a new, active life.

Beyond the particulars of pain and mortal illness, larger concerns surface here -- a determination to get on with the human interaction that is so much a part of this writer's much-loved work, the gratitude he feels toward kin and friends and some (though by no means all) doctors, the return to his prolific work, and the "now appalling, now astonishing grace of God."

A Whole New Life offers more than the portrait of one brave person in tribulation; it offers honest insight, realistic encouragement and inspiration to others who suffer the bafflement of catastrophic illness or who know someone who does or will.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    224 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    June 24, 2003
  4. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.56 x 8.44 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    9780743238540
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0743238540
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Booklist Even about disease and pain, Price speaks beautifully. A special book.

Chicago Tribune An achingly eloquent account...By turns stirring and funny, anguished and joyful.

Daily News (New York) Price writes sincerely and openly, without a trace of self-pity... a clear-eyed book that is as realistic as a sawed-off shotgun. It is wise, and humbling, and it bears reading before it is needed.

Los Angeles Times Book Review The man who emerges from these pages is feisty, gritty, angry...and most appealing.

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.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0743238540
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Scribner (June 24, 2003)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780743238540
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0743238540
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.4 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.56 x 8.44 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.2 4.2 out of 5 stars 90 ratings

About the author

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Reynolds Price

Reynolds Price

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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 has taught at Duke since 1958 and is now 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 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.

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5 stars
4.2 out of 5
90 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

JimB in OKHB
5.0 out of 5 stars It just May Help You
Reviewed in the United States on October 13, 2023
Verified Purchase
This book is not an enjoyable read. I don't think it was meant to be. However, it is an inspirational must-read! I am eternally grateful to the VA Pain Management Doctor who suggested I read this book. Thanks Dr. Becca! This book is a highly personal first-person account of a cancerous journey into constant and brutal pain and successfully learning to tolerate and live with that constant pain. If you have chronic pain I recommend you read this book.
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MugoDog
4.0 out of 5 stars Valuable insight into challenges of mobility-limited life
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2011
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This book provides excellent insight into the challenges of life that paraplegics and other mobility-challenged persons must deal with. The narrative gives a chronology of the ordeal of the author, Reynolds Price, after near-fatal spinal cancer left him as a paraplegic who lived the last 25+ years of his life as a successful writer and esteemed professor of English at Duke University. I read the book in order to gain a better understanding for the reality of life for those who must use wheel chairs or are otherwise of limited mobility. This information is valuable for those of us who are approaching our 80th year of life and might reasonably expect to ultimately lack the mobility we currently have. Some of the problems that Price describes include physical modifications of his home and workplace for wheelchair access, elimination of bodily waste and other hygienic issues, as well as travel in planes and cars. Examples of other details that he points out are that the flagstone sidewalks of the Duke campus were especially unfriendly for wheelchairs and that table and desk heights also needed to be modified for him to use while seated in his wheelchair.

Prof. Price fully documents his long battle with severe chronic pain and how he was able to manage the pain while being an even more productive author and academician than he was prior to his disability. The coping strategies that he used and the reality of his physical limitations are quite informative. As the potential for health issues of the magnitude to disable us are universal, this book provides valuable context for understanding and appreciation of a reality that many may face and others already experience.

The tone of the book ranges from deadly serious and analytical to humorous and quite personal. I recommend the book for everyone who wants to learn what life is like as an upper-middle class paraplegic. Descriptions of care provided by the wide spectrum of members of health care profession are especially informative and useful.
3 people found this helpful
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Ginny Mayer
5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquently written and insightful, hopeful yet realistic
Reviewed in the United States on September 23, 2017
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Price's experience will resonate with others who are, to use his word, among the "damaged." He is blunt in describing the everyday difficulties in areas not usually discussed in "polite company" in a way that provides insights to those non-sufferers who may be only aware of the obvious hardships (i.e. inability to walk) but not of everyday challenges and frustrations in mundane areas such as attempting to maintain personal hygiene; and fellow sufferers will nod in recognition and perhaps feel relief at the mention of miseries they might generally keep to themselves.

While Price's occasional expressions of religiosity may be off-putting to many, he does not push his faith as the solution. Instead he provides no easy answers, no facile self-help advice. Yet overall, despite never minimizing the misery of his situation, Price ultimately manages to offer a positive outlook. It is also noteworthy that the writing itself is extremely eloquent.
One person found this helpful
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Paul D. Baxter
5.0 out of 5 stars One test of a good book is...
Reviewed in the United States on September 25, 2001
Verified Purchase
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.
39 people found this helpful
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just me
5.0 out of 5 stars The right book at the right time for me
Reviewed in the United States on August 31, 2013
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As I deal with a potentially disabling illness myself, my therapist recommended this book to me. It is Price's memoir about his own disabling condition. The details are not the same, but it is a powerful and beautifully-written (Price is a major novelist) telling of the process of grieving, but also the process of coping, and lessons he learned in the processes. The lessons are not, of course, universally applicable -- coping differs between people, as well as does circumstance -- but the supertitle, "A Whole New Life," conveys the key message.

The life after a catastrophic event such as becoming disabled is not the same life one had before. But it is still a life. His key admonition is to grieve appropriately for the old life, but then to move on to build the new one.

This was the right book at the right time for me, and created by a far more skilled writer than one would normally find on self-help shelves.
4 people found this helpful
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Faith
3.0 out of 5 stars Faith's review
Reviewed in the United States on November 4, 2012
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I thought the book was well written but thought there would be much more helpful information for those of us just starting out in the wheelchair. I was a little let down by that.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

ms a jones
3.0 out of 5 stars Three Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 8, 2016
Verified Purchase
As a mother of a child with the same condition this was very interesting and enlightening
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