Learning a Trade: A Craftsman's Notebooks: 1955-1997

by Reynolds Price

Book Overview

From Reynolds Price, much acclaimed author of award-winning novels, plays, poems, stories, and essays, comes a work that is unique among contemporary writers of American literature. For more than forty years, Price has kept a working journal of his writing life. Now published for the first time, Learning a Trade provides a revealing window into this writer's creative process and craftsman's sensibilities. Whether Price is reflecting on the rhythm...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822321122
• ISBN13: 9780822321125
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Length: 624 Pages
• Weight: 2.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

On Price's Learning a Trade

This is a great book to have around, and to dip into as you progress through Price's works -- which is definitely worth doing. It is not meant to be read through, start to finish; I have been reading the sections devoted to certain works after reading the works themselves. Pages devoted to a given work are quite specific; a familiarity with the work is very important, almost necessary. I had hoped the book would be a bit more generic about the craft, the writers Price has read, the perils of publishing, etc.; instead, the book is comprised of straight excerpts from the notebooks of a working writer, focusing on the naming of characters, motivation, structure and so on. The design of the book allows for Price's comments on his own notes -- sometimes written much later -- to appear on the facing pages, as they do in his actual notebooks. And the pages are chock full of gems such as this: writer's block is nothing more than "the writer's failure to understand his or her creative metabolism." And the book will lead you to other Price works, among which I heartily recommned Roxanna Slade,The Promise of Rest and Price's harrowing account of surviving spinal cancer, A Whole New Life. Price has a voice that is warm and distinctive, wonderfully southern, and he is not afraid to address life's larger issues -- rare among writers today.