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RICHARD PRICE
LEADING NOVELIST AND HOLLYWOOD SCREENWRITER KNOWN FOR STREETWISE DIALOGUE
NYS Writers Institute, April 10, 2008
4:15 p.m. Seminar | Assembly Hall, Campus Center
8:00 p.m. Reading | Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center
CALENDAR LISTING:
Richard Price, leading novelist and Hollywood screenwriter, will discuss his new novel about crime and gentrification on New York’s Lower East Side on Thursday, April 10, 2008 at 8:00 p.m. in the Recital Hall, Performing Arts Center on the University at Albany’s uptown campus. Earlier that same day at 4:15 p.m. the author will present an informal seminar in the Assembly Hall, Campus Center on the uptown campus. The events are free and open to the public, and sponsored by the New York State Writers Institute.
PROFILE
Richard Price is one of America’s leading novelists, an author whose hard-boiled, provocative and often violent books transcend genre and earn superlative praise. Price is also one of the most sought-after writers of streetwise plots and dialogue for the motion picture industry.
His newest novel of crime and urban survival is “Lush Life” (2008), about the desperate fates of working class people left stranded by gentrification on New York’s Lower East Side.
In a starred review, “Publishers Weekly” said, “Master of the Bronx and Jersey projects, Price turns his unrelenting eye on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in this manic crescendo of a novel that explores the repercussions of a seemingly random shooting.... With its perfect dialogue and attention to the smallest detail, Price’s latest reminds readers why he’s one of the masters of American urban crime fiction.” In advance praise, Russell Banks said, “With‘Lush Life’ Richard Price has become our post-modern American Balzac. [He] writes the language we hear and speak better than any novelist around, living or dead....”
Price’s earlier novels include “Samaritan” (2003), “Freedomland” (1998), “Clockers” (1992), “Bloodbrothers” (1976), and “The Wanderers” (1974). The “New Yorker” reviewer said of “Samaritan,” “Giving new meaning to the term ‘inner city,’ Price yields up not just the familiar, blanched moonscape of urban blight but the inner lives and jackhammering hearts of those who pace and patrol it.”
Price received an Academy Award nomination for his screenplay for “The Color of Money” (1986), a film that netted Paul Newman an Oscar for Best Actor. Other screenwriting credits include John Singleton’s remake of “Shaft” (2000); Ron Howard’s “Ransom” (1996), starring Mel Gibson; “Kiss of Death” (1995), starring David Caruso and Samuel L. Jackson; “Mad Dog and Glory” and “Night and the City” (1992), both starring Robert De Niro; Martin Scorcese’s film segment “Life Lessons,” part of a trilogy of shorts included in the film “New York Stories” (1989); and “Arena Brains” (1988), starring Eric Bogosian.
Some of Richard Price’s novels have also been made into films, including the “The Wanderers” (1979), a film that has attracted a cult following, and “Bloodbrothers” (1978), starring Richard Gere and Paul Sorvino. Price is also the author of both novel and screenplay for Spike Lee’s “Clockers,” starring Harvey Keitel, and for “Freedomland” (2004), starring Morgan Freeman and Julianne Moore.
TV writing credits include four episodes of HBO’s hit series, “The Wire.”
NOTE: In association with the writer’s visit, the film “Mad Dog and Glory,” with a script by Richard Price, and starring Robert DeNiro, Uma Thurman and Bill Murray, will be screened on the previous Friday, April 4, 2008 at 7:30 P.M. in Page Hall on the University at Albany’s downtown campus.
For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or online at https://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.