In his novels, Reynolds Price has always been very adept at charting the emotional depths and noting the times when his characters must choose to ally themselves with life or with death. In A Whole New Life he plumbs the emotional depths of his own four-year battle with cancer, pain, and paralysis and decides to choose life. Reynolds Price dedicates this memoir to "the curious reader who waits for his or her own devastation."
In 1984, a ten-inch tumor was discovered in the author's spinal cord. The doctor operated but only got part of it. Just before Price was to begin five weeks of radiation, he had a vivid dream of an encounter with Jesus at the Sea of Galilee, a place he had recently visited and photographed. In the dream, he follows Jesus into the lake. Jesus pours water over his back and "puckered scar," telling him that his sins are forgiven. As Jesus turns to go, Price boldly asks, "Am I also cured?" Jesus answers, "That too."
Price, who categorizes himself as an unorthodox and nonchurchly Christian, uses this vision as a source of strength during his arduous journey into unrelenting pain and eventual paralysis of his lower body. He is buoyed by the unstinting support of relatives and friends and the salutary benefits of biofeedback and hypnosis. He continues to write poems, plays, and novels.
Nietzsche has written: "I doubt that such pain (the kind that compels us to descend to our ultimate depths) makes us better but I know it makes us more profound...From such abysses...one returns newborn, having shed one's skin." Reynolds Price is transformed by his battle against cancer into a whole new person. Through this memoir, his profundity, his patience, and his passion wash over us like healing oils. We see what it is like to be born again, having shed one's skin.