A “GAMBOLING” OR “BRAVURA” FIRST SENTENCE.

A “GAMBOLING” OR “BRAVURA” FIRST SENTENCE. Reynolds Price has died. The obituaries all seem to mention the first sentence of A LONG AND HAPPY LIFE, his first book. The sentence has been described as “gamboling” or “bravura” and compared by Theodore Solatoroff to a 60 yard touchdown pass thrown by a quarterback on his first professional play. This blog post says that Bill Clinton once recited the sentence to Price while they were on an elevator and then quotes that first sentence. Here is the sentence: “Just with his body and from inside like a snake, leaning that black motorcycle side to side, cutting in and out of the slow line of cars to get there first, staring due-north through goggles towards Mount Moriah and switching coon tails in everybody’s face was Wesley Beavers, and laid against his back like sleep, spraddle-legged on the sheepskin seat behind him was Rosacoke Mustian who was maybe his girl and who had given up looking into the wind and trying to nod at every sad car in the line, and when he even speeded up and passed the truck (lent for the afternoon by Mr. Isaac Alston and driven by Sammy his man, hauling one pine box and one black boy dressed in all he could borrow, set up in a ladder-back chair with flowers banked round him and a foot on the box to steady it) — when he even passed that, Rosacoke said once into his back ‘Don’t’ and rested in humiliation, not thinking but with her hands on his hips for dear life and her white blouse blown out behind her like a banner in defeat.”