 | A WRITER'S WIT |  B. Pasternak |
My Book World
Price, Reynolds. Ardent Spirits: Leaving Home, Coming Back. New York: Scribner, 2009.
Seems there is always something interesting to be found in a writer’s memoirs, and Price’s is no exception. This, one of three volumes his memoirs, is an account of his years of study abroad and his first years of teaching at Duke University. Yet, of course, it also includes much else along the way: the many close friendships and collegial relationships he acquires in academia; familial relationships, tangentially at least; his desire to be and early practices of becoming a novelist; his relationships with other writers and those associated with the publishing business (some natural sort of name-dropping allowed).
And finally, he does address his homosexuality (having been born in 1933, he abhors the term “gay” and justifies his disapproval). Both in the UK and US, such sexual actions are strictly illegal, so he lives primarily a lonely life, never establishing a long-term relationship, though he does come close while in England, falling in love with a European man just prior to returning to the States to teach. Their long distance love fizzles out, but they do remain friends. Price dies in 2011, just as gay marriage is being accepted as a norm. Pity. I would love to know what his thoughts about it might have been.
Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Frederick Douglass
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Alfred North Whitehead
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Maureen Johnson
FRI: My Book World | Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White
Seems there is always something interesting to be found in a writer’s memoirs, and Price’s is no exception. This, one of three volumes his memoirs, is an account of his years of study abroad and his first years of teaching at Duke University. Yet, of course, it also includes much else along the way: the many close friendships and collegial relationships he acquires in academia; familial relationships, tangentially at least; his desire to be and early practices of becoming a novelist; his relationships with other writers and those associated with the publishing business (some natural sort of name-dropping allowed).
And finally, he does address his homosexuality (having been born in 1933, he abhors the term “gay” and justifies his disapproval). Both in the UK and US, such sexual actions are strictly illegal, so he lives primarily a lonely life, never establishing a long-term relationship, though he does come close while in England, falling in love with a European man just prior to returning to the States to teach. Their long distance love fizzles out, but they do remain friends. Price dies in 2011, just as gay marriage is being accepted as a norm. Pity. I would love to know what his thoughts about it might have been.
Coming Next:
TUES: A Writer's Wit | Frederick Douglass
WEDS: A Writer's Wit | Alfred North Whitehead
THURS: A Writer's Wit | Maureen Johnson
FRI: My Book World | Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White
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