Richard Price (writer)
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| Richard Price | |
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| Born | October 12, 1949 The Bronx, New York City, United States |
| Occupation | Novelist, screenwriter, journalist |
| Nationality | American |
Richard Price (born October 12, 1949) is an American novelist and screenwriter.
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[edit] Life
A self-described "middle class Jewish kid[1], Price was born in the Bronx, New York City and grew up in a housing project in the northeast Bronx. He graduated from the Bronx High School of Science in 1967[1] and obtained a BA from Cornell University and an MFA from Columbia University. He also did graduate work at Stanford University.
He has taught writing at Columbia, Yale University, and New York University. He was one of the first people interviewed on the NPR show Fresh Air when it began airing nationally in 1987. In 1999, he received the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature.
He resides in New York City with his family.
[edit] Novelist and screenwriter
Price's novels explore late 20th century urban America in a gritty, realistic manner that has brought him considerable literary acclaim. Several of his novels are set in a fictional northern New Jersey city called Dempsy. In his review of Lush Life (2008), Walter Kirn compared Price to Raymond Chandler and Saul Bellow.[2]
Price's first novel was The Wanderers (1974), a coming-of-age story set in the Bronx in 1962, written when Price was 24 years old. It was adapted into a movie in 1979, with a screenplay by Rose and Philip Kaufman and directed by the latter.
Clockers (1992) was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. It has been praised for its humor, suspense, dialogue, and character development. In 1995, it was made into a movie directed by Spike Lee; Price and Lee shared writing credits for the screenplay.
Price has written numerous screenplays, including The Color of Money (1986), for which he was nominated for an Oscar, Life Lessons (the Martin Scorsese segment of New York Stories) (1989), Sea of Love (1989), Mad Dog and Glory (1992), Ransom (1996), and Shaft (2000). He also wrote for the HBO series The Wire. Price was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2008 ceremony for his work on the fifth season of The Wire.[3] He is often cast in cameo roles in the films he writes.
Price also wrote and conceptualized the 15-minute film surrounding Michael Jackson's "Bad" video.
Additionally, he has published articles in the The New York Times, Esquire Magazine, The New Yorker, Village Voice, Rolling Stone and others.
[edit] Novels by Price
- 1974. The Wanderers
- 1976. Bloodbrothers
- 1978. Ladies' Man
- 1983. The Breaks
- 1992. Clockers
- 1998. Freedomland
- 2003. Samaritan
- 2008. Lush Life
[edit] References
- ^ a b Price, Richard (October 25, 1981). "The Fonzie of Literature". The New York Times Book Review. http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/06/07/specials/price-fonzie.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=richard%20price%20fonzie&st=cse. Retrieved 2009-11-16.
- ^ Kirn, Walter, "Review of Lush Life," New York Times Book Review, March 16, 2008.
- ^ "2009 Writers Guild Awards Television, Radio, News, Promotional Writing, and Graphic Animation Nominees Announced". WGA. 2008. http://wga.org/content/default.aspx?id=3410. Retrieved 2008-12-12.
[edit] External links
- Richard Price at the Internet Movie Database
- Richard Price interview
- Michael Chabon, "In Priceland," The New York Review of Books, May 1, 2008. A review of Lush Life and of Price's career
- John Hood review of Samaritan, Bully Magazine
