In very few weeks, I’d be getting the first sets of proof on A Long and Happy Life from New York and London—the elegant slender galley proofs that we got in those years and then the smaller corrected page proofs that gave a young writer the last rousing sense of writing his book almost from scratch, though massive corrections could cost him a packet. I was already hoping to enlist Tony Nuttall with proofreading help. He was married now, living in north Oxford, and starting work on his own D.Phil., supervised by Iris Murdoch after being refused by Helen Gardner.
With any luck, I’d hope to have the finished book in hand by early spring, some ten months before I was thirty years old. That hope, and the false expectation of frequent warm meetings with Matyas, were the strong cords that (through a bright day) literally drew my train on to Oxford, the only city in which I’d actually lived with all but unbroken pleasure for a bold stretch of years—and would do so again.
RP on the balcony of the Merton College boathouse, winter 1961, taken by Wallace Kaufman. I’m back in Oxford for a fourth year—a year that I thought would consist largely of writing a doctoral thesis or fiction of my own. The thesis proved unnecessary and was abandoned before I reached England, and very little fiction proved ready to be written so soon after my completion of A Long and Happy Life. I spent a good deal of time, then, with old friends like David Cecil, Nevill Coghill, Stephen Spender, and Tony Nuttall. My former student and friend Wally Kaufman was a student at Merton by then; and on one of our frequent walks round Christ Church Meadow—neither of us owned a car—Wally took this picture. The river is the Isis which ran past the Meadow, and I look unusually serious. Well, it’s plainly a gray day.
REYNOLDS PRICE (1933–2011)
In the summer after he published A Long and Happy Life in 1962, and won the William Faulkner Award, Reynolds Price returned to North Carolina. He went on to publish thirty-nine full-length volumes of fiction, poetry, plays, essays, and translations, and to teach at Duke University for more than five decades.
With the profit from a never-produced screenplay, Price bought a sizable dwelling near the trailer-house where he’d completed his first books and continued to work alone in the new house, surrounded by the same trees and animals. He was likewise visited by many friends and occasional loves, none of whom proved residential. In 1984 a large malignant tumor was discovered in his spinal cord; and after radiation and four surgeries at the hands of Dr. Allan Friedman, he settled into full-time wheelchair life. The demands of a disabled existence made it necessary to add accessible quarters to his house; until his death, Price lived there with the steady help of a series of live-in assistants.
Kate Vaiden, the novel he was writing when his cancer manifested itself, was published in 1986 and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. Ensuing years saw Price publish—among numerous other books—A Perfect Friend, his first novel for children and adults; large collections of his short stories and poems; and a gathering of fifty-odd commentaries that he’d broadcast on National Public Radio. His time since the early 1980s included national productions of his six plays—including Private Contentment, a script commissioned for PBS’s first season of American Playhouse. His dramatic trilogy New Music, the forty-year history of a family, premiered at the Cleveland Playhouse in a production that permitted audiences to see all three plays in a single long afternoon or on three consecutive evenings. And his Full Moon, originally commissioned by Duke Drama, appeared at San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater.
In 1988 he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters; his work has been translated into seventeen languages; and in the fall of 2008 he marked the fiftieth anniversary of teaching at Duke. He died on January 20, 2011.
INDEX
Accademia, Florence, 120
Ackerley, J. R., 19, 271
advanced-writing study, 72, 347
Albee, Edward, 237
Alcina (Handel), 273
alcohol use. See drinking behavior
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Carroll), 134, 222
All Quiet on the Western Front (film), 117
Alnwick Castle, England, 160
Alston, Miss Carrie, 70
Alston, Mr. Ed Falc, 70
Alston, Miss Jennie, 70, 370
Amsterdam, Holland, 175
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy), 259
Anne, Princess Royal, 147
“Anniversary, The” (Price), 68, 161–63, 182, 295, 311
anti-American attitudes, 61, 178–79
Antinous, 128
Antony and Cleopatra (Shakespeare), 50
Ardent Spirits (Price), 2, 3
Armstrong, Louis, 39, 125
Arnold, Matthew, 134, 279
Arthur, King, 150, 153
Ashton, Frederick, 100
Astor, Mrs. Brooke, 44
Atheneum, 374–76, 377, 378, 385, 388
Auden, W. H., 43, 128, 159, 210, 221, 233, 242, 256
drinking habits of, 138, 143, 226–27, 228, 229–30, 346
homosexuality of, 137, 141, 227, 276
later visits with, 142, 199, 226–30, 232, 273, 274–75, 286, 346
on Milton, 274–75
opera and, 136, 138, 139
Oxford teaching by, 136 (illus.), 137–41, 143–44, 218
poetry of, 138, 229, 279, 380
recommendation from, 143
Austen, Jane, 190, 261
Austria, 171–73, 350
Avebury, England, 145
Balliol College, Oxford University, 49, 144
Baptistry, Florence, 73, 120
Bardot, Brigitte, 91–92
Basel, Ashley, 103, 105, 108
Baum, Hessie, 361
Bayley, John, 47, 191, 200, 235, 274
Beavers, Wesley, 377–80
Beckett, Samuel, 65
Beckett, Thomas, 149
Bedford, Brian, 262
Beerbohm, Max, 27, 45
Beethoven, Ludwig van, 212, 276
Benchley, Robert, 107
Bennett, Claude and Betty, 335
Bennett, Marcia Drake, 180 (illus.)
Bergen, Norway, 160–61
Berlin, Isaiah, 47, 137, 210
Berlioz, Hector, 220
Bernac, Pierre, 129
Bernini, Giovanni Lorenzo, 85, 87
Bessie, Simon Michael, 376, 385
Bevan, Mr. and Mrs. Harry, 181–83
Blackburn, William (Bill), 156 (illus.)
early support for Price’s work from, 55–57, 124, 146, 329, 375, 377
friendship with, 326–29, 360
publication of Price’s work and rejection by, 329–30
Price’s teaching at Duke and, 252–53, 310, 324, 370
Rhodes Scholarship application suggested by, 155–57
support for Price’s work by Paris Review/Styron and, 124, 146
Welty’s review of Price’s work and, 55–57
Blackwell’s, Oxford, 68, 98, 289
Blackwood’s Magazine, 155
Blair, Robert, 354–55
Blake, William, 354–55
Blenheim Palace, 134–35, 191, 229
Bloom, Claire, 49, 237
Bloxton, Brutus, 301, 304, 305
Boatwright, Jim, 356, 358, 359, 360–61, 368
Boboli Gardens, Florence, 56 (illus.), 73
Bodleian Library, Oxford University, 43–44
reading at, 55, 58, 98, 102, 107, 188, 218
temporary loss of a book owned by Milton from, 120–23
Bogarde, Dirk, 91
Böhm, Karl, 171
Bonynge, Richard, 273
Borghese Gardens, Rome, 80, 87
Botticelli, Sandro, 71, 73
Bowen, Elizabeth, 126, 127
Bower, Anthony, 56 (illus.)
Bowes-Lyon, Elizabeth, Queen Mother, 147, 148, 264
Bowra, Sir Maurice, 231–32
Brando, Marlon, 12
Brideshead Revisited (Waugh), 60
Bridge on the River Kwai, The (film), 292
Bridges, Robert, 277
Brighton, England, 147, 149, 155, 166, 198, 201, 220, 223, 238–41, 390
Brontë, Emily, 126, 285
Brook, Peter, 235
Brooks, Cleanth, 142–43
Brown v. Board of Education, 67
Bulganin, Nikolay, 123
Burton, Richard, 128, 235, 284 (illus.)
Buttinger, Muriel Gardiner, 350, 352
Caesar and Cleopatra (Shaw), 50
Callas, Maria, 100
Campbell, Alan, 255–57, 292
Camus, Albert, 235
Calvocoressi, Peter, 217
Cambridge University, 60, 66, 270, 279
Canfield, Cass, 216–17, 271
Canova, Antonio, 87
Cantelli, Guido, 158–59
Canterbury, England, 149
Canterbury Tales, The (Chaucer), 128, 142
Caravaggio, 87
Carroll, Lewis (Charles Dodgson), 134, 139, 189, 222, 279
Castel Sant’Angelo, Rome, 86
Cather, Willa, 315
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Williams), 49
Cecil, Lord David, 45–47, 221, 225, 256
on Auden, 140
comments on Price’s short stories from, 125–26, 219, 370
on Connolly, 207
on creating female characters, 259–61
doctoral degree preparation and, 258, 269, 285, 374
friendship with, 194–95, 200, 247–48, 258, 274, 283–85, 390, 391
literature discussions with, 126–27, 151, 152, 190, 208, 341
Oxford classes with, 42, 43, 44 (illus.), 45–46, 54, 66, 98
visits with, 125, 131, 133
Cecil, Hugh, 46
Cecil, Rachel, 44, 285
Celtic background of Price family, 181–82
Chagall, Marc, 226
“Chain of Love, A” (Price), 55, 70, 72, 124, 125–26, 182, 200, 201, 202, 205, 216, 271, 295, 311, 340, 378
Chappell, Fred, 157, 322, 323, 326, 327, 347
Chappell, Sue, 322, 326, 347
Charles, Prince of Wales, 147
Chatto and Windus, 217, 294, 333, 376
Chaucer, Geoffrey, 128, 317, 371
Chekhov, Anton, 57, 126, 237, 276–77
Cherry Orchard, The (Chekhov), 276-77
Christ Church, Oxford University, 24, 60, 134, 138, 140–41, 143, 226, 227
Christmas celebration, in Rome, 76, 77–79, 81, 83
Churchill, Lord Randolph, 27
Churchill, Winston, 237, 307
Churchill family, 134–35, 191
CIA
Encounter magazine and, 202, 272
Radio Free Europe and, 111, 173, 202
Cinderella (ballet), 100
Circus Maximus, Rome, 82
civil-rights movement, 67–68, 243–45
Civil War, 16–17
Clarissa (Richardson), 98
Clark, Kenneth, 289
Clear Pictures (Price), 1
“Closing, the Ecstasy, The” (Price), 283
Clough, Arthur Hugh, 134, 193
Coghill, Nevill, 277
friendship with, 131, 133, 194–95, 230, 250, 258, 285–87, 390, 391
Oxford lectures, 45, 127–29, 194–95, 370
as Price’s thesis examiner, 269–70
productions directed by, 127–28, 142, 143, 228, 284 (illus.)
Coghill, Sir Patrick, 128
Collected Poems, The (Price), 283
Collins, Wilkie, 132
Cologne, Germany, 174
Colosseum, Rome, 77, 82–83
Combs, Bill and Marie, 324–25
Commedia (Dante), 68, 112
commemoration ball, Merton College, Oxford University, 62–64
Commons, Jeremy, 48, 98, 189
Connolly, Cyril, 205–07, 208, 211, 212, 256
Conrad, Joseph, 155, 190, 370
Copenhagen, Denmark, 167–68
Cornwall, England, 152–54, 266–67
Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, 34–35
Corydon (Gide), 18
Cranborne, Hannah, 47
Craxton, Anthony, 209
Craxton, Essie, 209
Craxton, Harold, 209
Craxton, Janet, 209
Craxton, John, 208–09, 237–38, 266–67, 273, 282, 289, 390
Critical Theory, 142, 370
Cunningham, Imogen, 344 (illus.)
Dachau camp, Germany, 170–71
Dante, 68, 73, 74, 112
Darling (Schlesinger), 131
Darwin, Charles, 57
Davenport, Guy, 329
David Cecil (Cranborne), 47
Davis, Crichton, 370
Davis, Herbert, 42–43
“Dead, The” (Joyce), 243
Dead Man’s Walk, Merton College, Oxford University, 32, 217
Dean, James, 15–16, 37, 100
Defoe, Daniel, 190
Delft, Holland, 177
Delicate Balance, A (Albee), 237
Delon, Alain, 389
DeMille, Cecil, 77
Denmark, 167–68
Devil’s Disciple, The (Shaw), 125
De Voto, Bernard, 11, 296
Dickens, Charles, 256
Dickinson, Emily, 138
Diodati, Charles, 193
Dobtcheff, Vernon, 230
doctoral degree
Price’s desire for, 179–81
Price’s preparation for, 258–59, 269–70, 285, 374
Doctor at Sea (film), 91
Dr. Faustus (Marlowe), 14, 230–31, 284
Dodgson, Charles (Carroll, Lewis) 134, 139, 189, 222, 279
“Dog’s Death, A” (Price), 183, 187
Donatello, 73
Dönitz, Karl, 169
Donne, John, 42, 131, 279, 317, 371
Dorchester, England, 151–52
Dort, Deede, 149
Drake, Ida Rodwell, 83, 305, 307, 383–84
Drake, Mildred, 311
drinking behavior
Auden and, 138, 143, 226–27, 228, 229–30, 346
Duke fraternity socializing and, 14
father’s problems with, 12, 14, 125, 309
Jefferson’s love of French wines at Monticello and, 3
Price and, 125, 229–30
Dubliners (Joyce), 243
Duel of Angels (Giraudoux), 237
Duino Castle, Italy, 110 (illus.), 111–12, 114 (illus.)
Duino Elegies (Rilke), 40, 110, 111, 112, 114
Duke, James B., 32, 319
Duke Humfrey Library, Oxford University, 98, 123
Duke Medical Center, 1
Duke University, Price as a student at, 2, 11, 14, 125
campus of, 32–33
later contact with fellow students from, 104, 149, 294
Misterfofelees, fraternity nickname, 14
senior year and honors thesis at, 24, 40
studies at, 32, 40, 55, 68, 70, 71, 155–57, 168, 243
Duke University, Price as a teacher at
advanced-writing study and, 72, 347
conferences with students and, 316–17
as first teaching position, 219, 252, 253
friends during, 324–26
second year as, 322–24
time for writing and schedule at, 335–39
Dunstanburgh Castle, England, 160
Duomo, Florence, 73, 120
Durham Cathedral, England, 160
Dyson, Hugo, 131
East of Eden (film), 15
Eisenhower, Dwight D., 199, 243
“Elegy for William Butler Yeats” (Auden), 143
Eliot, T. S., 27, 32, 33, 137, 139, 256, 360
Elizabeth II, Queen of England, 147, 148, 263
Elizabeth, Queen Mother, 147, 148, 264
Ellington, Duke, 39
Emma (Austen), 190
Encounter (magazine), 201, 202, 203, 205, 216, 234–35, 238, 271, 272, 342, 355, 363, 373, 378
English language, 42, 60, 63, 149
Enter
tainer, The (Osborne), 250
Epstein, Jason, 374, 375, 376
Erasmus, 34–35
Euripides, 120–22
Evans, Arthur, 277
Exeter College, Oxford University, 127, 128, 286
Fall, The (Camus), 235
Farewell to Arms, A (Hemingway), 315
Farrar, Geraldine, 214
Faulkner, William, 258
Fenton, Charles, 359–64
Fischer-Dieskau, Dietrich, 171
Fisher, M. F. K., 138
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 256, 258, 315–17
Flagstad, Kirsten, 212
Flaubert, Gustave, 126, 259, 341
Fletcher, John, 231
Florence, Italy, 68–74, 81, 89, 120
Fonteyn, Margot, 100
Ford, Harry, 376, 388–89
Forster, E. M., 69, 126, 127, 179, 212, 258, 270, 341
Fox, Nancy Jo, 294
“Fox, The” (Lawrence), 341
Freud, Lucian, 208
Freud, Sigmund, 106
Frost, Robert, 231–33, 380
Fuller, John, 274
“Galax, The” (Tyler), 321
Gardner, Helen, 42, 43–45, 54, 66, 95, 96 (illus.), 248, 258, 285, 290, 370
thesis discussions with, 97–98, 124–25, 197–98, 245
as tutor, 97–98, 129–31, 135, 147, 154, 194–95
Garrard, Garry, 63, 64, 103, 105, 108
Gay, Lulie Price, 16
Geneva, Switzerland, 105, 120
Gibbons family, 266, 267
Gide, André, 18
Gielgud, John, 49, 128, 237, 262–66, 265 (illus.), 272, 279–82, 284, 367
Gilbert, Allan, 40, 41, 69–70
Gilchrist, David, 31, 38, 54
Giorgione, 107
Giraudoux, Jean, 237
Glyndebourne, England, 149
Go-Between, The (Hartley), 127
Golden House, Rome, 86–87
Goltz, Christel, 106
Gone With the Wind (film), 236, 237
Good Priest’s Son, The (Price), 257
graduate studies, Oxford University, 35–36
Grave, The (Blair), 354–55
Graves, Robert, 84
Grayson, Jeremy, 265 (illus.)
Great Depression, 12, 13, 17, 89
Great Gatsby, The (Fitzgerald), 315
Greene, Graham, 265, 272, 338–39
Griffin, Jim, 23, 24, 35, 144, 189, 226
Florence trip with, 52, 54, 65, 66, 68–70, 73, 89
Rome trip with, 75–81, 83–92
visit to London with, 64–65
Guggenheim Fellowship, 143
Guinness, Alec, 236
Hague, Holland, 176
Hallam, Arthur, 193
Hamilton, Hamish, 217
Hamlet (Shakespeare), 49, 168, 284