A Solemn Pleasure
To Imagine, Witness, and Write
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
“A writer at the height of her powers” (Oprah.com) reflects on a literary life pulled in two directions: from war zone journalism to the writing and teaching of fiction
In an essay entitled “Spirit and Vision” Melissa Pritchard poses the question: “Why write?” Her answer reverberates throughout A Solemn Pleasure, presenting an undeniable case for both the power of language and the nurturing constancy of the writing life. Whether describing the deeply interior imaginative life required to write fiction, searching for the lost legacy of American literature as embodied by Walt Whitman, being embedded with a young female GI in Afghanistan, traveling with Ethiopian tribes, or revealing the heartrending story of her informally adopted son William, a former Sudanese child slave, this is nonfiction vividly engaged with the world. In these fifteen essays, Pritchard shares her passion for writing and storytelling that educates, honors, and inspires.
Melissa Pritchard is the author of the novel Palmerino, the short story collection The Odditorium, and the essay collection A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write, among other books. Emeritus Professor of English and Women’s Studies at Arizona State University, she now lives in Columbus, Georgia.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Novelist Pritchard (Palmerino) offers an uneven but often moving collection of 15 essays on such varied topics as the search for a stable sense of place and the writing life. "We praise artists to devalue ourselves," Pritchard writes in "A Graven Space," which proves less concerned with its ostensible subject Georgia O'Keeffe than with the creation of false narratives around idols. "From the Deep South to the Desert South: An Epiphyte's Confession" discusses Pritchard's attempts to emulate famous Russian and American Southern writers early in her career, only to find she had become "a clever mimic." Pritchard's interest in location is clear throughout, whether she's in London, Panjshir, or Edinburgh; the collection peaks with her revelation that she had found, in the American Southwest, a place without attachments. Her writing is often at its best at its most somber, as when describing the hospice nurses who attended Pritchard's dying mother as "midwives," or recalling the life and death of an American soldier she met while embedded as a journalist in Afghanistan. One of the strongest selections, "Still, God Helps You" depicts her encounter with a Sudanese man who was sold into slavery as a child. The collection's impact is blunted by repetitive essays on the craft of writing. Nonetheless, readers will treasure the book's numerous memorable moments.
