FictionRichard Price writes fiction as R J Price. His books include the linked short stories A Boy in Summer (2002; now in eBook), and the novel The Island (2010), about a father, a daughter, and what looks like the end of their world. The IslandToby Litt describes the novel as "Understated yet devastating, controlled yet unpredictable – The Island is a story of rare qualities that many writers aim for and few achieve. Read it – it’ll be one of the most beautiful nightmares you’ll ever have." Bill Broady, author of Swimmer, comments: "Richard Price explores the intersecting worlds of children and adults with a wild joy and sadness. Here Price’s lyric gifts are refined further towards the quintessence. A well-nigh perfect short novel."
Characters and events in A Boy in Summer, The Island, and the poetry collection Greenfields are linked via the 'greenfields' of Renfrewshire, where dramatic human stories intersect and collide in the villages and towns of west Scotland. A Boy in Summer
A collection of linked short stories which gradually build up to become an "elliptical novel", a layered evocation of a Scottish community from the 1960s to the present day. Highlights include a peculiar game with a BMW, a hapless kidnap attempt, a snowy journey towards a honeymoon, love on the day of LiveAid, and, at the heart of the book, delicate recreations of childhood. This is one of the books in which the Hydro Hotel appears, the location "Renfrewshwhere". "With R. J. Price there is a rare and precious stasis, a sense of otherness and the gift of insinuation. Of leaving more out than is on the page. Ghosts invisible; ever present. In the best of the stories - which are exquisite - such as "A Room Full of Botticellis", "The Last Day" and "Answers to an Interview", the detail illuminates character. Age range, too, is beautifully handled, as are relationships, the unspoken bonds between sons and hero fathers, between the older and younger self, the melt of time, the lure of place. " - Tom Adair, The Scotsman "Richard Price is first and foremost a poet - that much is apparent from the opening lines of the first story in this glittering collection. Price's stories are as intricately woven and as brightly coloured as a complex tapestry, pattern recalling pattern as the summer wears on." - Kirkus UK All texts unless otherwise stated © Richard Price |
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