Kelly is an instructor of literature and creative writing at two colleges in Illinois. In this essay, Kelly shows an appreciation for Price's skill at raising references and insinuations in A Long and Happy Life that never need to be explained.

There are many reasons to recommend Reynolds Price's 1962 debut novel, A Long and Happy Life, and most of them have to do with the way that Price makes his characters and their situation real and convincing. The world that surrounds the book's protagonist, Rosacoke Mustian, is vivid, rich, and varied, so much so that, as in the real world, there are issues and actions that can never be fully understood. It starts with a mystery—who is the father of Mildred Sutton's baby?—and continues to drop one open-ended suggestion after another. Who is the younger boy in the photo of Rosacoke's father, and...