Roxanna Slade - by Reynolds Price (Paperback)

About the Book

Price weaves a beguiling tale of the modern South and of a woman whose inner strengths feed a piercingly clear vision, forth-right hungers, and immense vitality.

Book Synopsis

Not since Reynolds Price's award-winning, bestselling novel Kate Vaiden has he told a woman's story in her own voice. Roxanna Slade is this woman.
Roxanna begins her story on her twentieth birthday -- a day that introduces her to the harsh realities of adulthood and changes the course of her life forever. From this day on, Roxanna is quick to share with the reader the intimate details of ninety years of life in North Carolina. Her beguiling tale is one that boldly reflects the high and low moments in the development of the modern South and the nation as well as the inner strength of a woman possessed of a piercingly clear vision, forthright hungers and immense vitality.

From the Back Cover

Not since Reynolds Price's award-winning, bestselling novel Kate Vaiden has he told a woman's story in her own voice. Roxanna Slade is this woman.

Roxanna begins her story on her twentieth birthday -- a day that introduces her to the harsh realities of adulthood and changes the course of her life forever. From this day on, Roxanna is quick to share with the reader the intimate details of ninety years of life in North Carolina. Her beguiling tale is one that boldly reflects the high and low moments in the development of the modern South and the nation as well as the inner strength of a woman possessed of a piercingly clear vision, forthright hungers and immense vitality.

Review Quotes

Anne Rivers Siddons Extraordinary. Price knows all there is to know about the American South, and Roxanna Slade is what he knows. It's a powerful book in its deceptive simplicity, vivid and particular. I loved it.

Barbara Holliday Detroit Free Press Reynolds Price may well be the dean of Southern writers.

Charles Frazier author of Cold Mountain What a privilege to sit down with this book and let Roxanna Slade's wise, strong voice talk in your mind for a measure of hours about the profound consequence of ordinary lives.

David Weigand San Francisco Chronicle Roxanna Slade is a profoundly and provocatively hope-filled book -- one might even say spiritual....Masterful...compelling.

Diana Postlethwaite The Washington Post Reading Roxanna Slade is like sitting at the feet of the wisest, most engaging, truth-tellingest grandmother imaginable....Here is language you can swim in, inhale, savor on the tip of your tongue.

Ellen Kanner The Miami Herald Roxanna Slade shows that in a world of deceit, a simple, good woman is something exceptional. She can tell a good story if you have the time to listen.

James Schiff The Raleigh News & Observer A virtuoso performance...through Roxanna's voice Price demonstrates that he, more than any of his contemporaries, is indeed a singer of stories.

Janet Burroway The New York Times Book Review A chronicler of decency, pluck and joy, in novel after novel [Price] has given us the weight and worth of the ordinary.

Polly Paddock Gossett The Charlotte Observer Price proves yet again why he is one of America's most esteemed writers. His prose is rich and lyrical; his insights keen; his ability to slip inside the skin of his characters (especially women) astounding.

Richard Bernstein The New York Times Reading Reynolds Price's novel Roxanna Slade is like sitting through a long and languid North Carolina evening and listening to an intimate summing up of a hard life.

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.