BOOKS: STARING DOWN LONELINESS

REYNOLDS PRICE ROUNDS OFF A POWERFUL SAGA OF ISOLATION

WITH THE PROMISE OF REST (Scribner; 353 pages; $24), a powerful, brooding novel of a father who eases his son's death from aids, Reynolds Price closes a remarkable trilogy that began in 1975 with The Surface of Earth and continued six years later with The Source of Light. As is usually said about concluding volumes of trilogies, the new novel can stand alone, which in this case means not only that it makes good dramatic sense by itself, but also that it is not necessary to know its writing was an act of heroism. For the past few years, as he...

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