Breaks [Hardcover]

Richard price (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1983

From the Bestselling Author of Lush Life

Peter Keller, first college grad from a working-class Yonkers family, thought he was on the road to success. Until no law school wanted him. As he watches his friends advance into promising careers, he jumps from job to job---mail clerk, phone solicitor, stand-up comic---until he breaks down and starts phoning in bomb threats on his own house. He’s going to have to work hard to change the pattern of self-sabotage that has defined most of his life. And taking that job at his alma mater as a teacher of freshman comp and starting an affair with a violently psychotic ex-wife of a colleague probably won’t help matters. Richard Price’s brilliant comic novel is a classic tale of a young man trying to find his place in the world.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A glorious, gritty comedy.” —The New Yorker

“Richard Price is to fiction what Martin Scorsese is to film....He has a genuine gift; his style is energetic, his eye for catching the minutiae of pop culture is keen, he swings to the jangling rhythms of city life.” —The Washington Post Book World

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Richard Price is the author of seven novels, including Lush Life, Clockers, Freedomland, and Samaritan. He wrote the screenplays for the films Sea of Love, Ransom, and The Color of Money, for which he received an Academy Award nomination. He won the 2007 Edgar Award for Best TV writing as a co-writer for the HBO series The Wire. Price was also awarded a Literature Award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York City.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 446 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 2nd edition (February 1, 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671452363
• ISBN-13: 978-0671452360
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #861,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and insightful, April 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Breaks (Hardcover)

"The Breaks" is one of the funniest books I have ever read. I've read interviews with Richard Price where he calls this book and his other classic, "Ladies Man", his early "bad" efforts. No way! In "The Breaks" you get several novels for the price of one---all of them great! There's the protagonist's hilarious adventures with depression after college(really!); his earnest but hapless return to his college town; his not-quite-successful romance with a woman a few years older and several decades smarter than him; his sudden urge to be a stand-up comic; and his scary/funny rivalry with his girlfriend's ex-husband. I've owned "The Breaks" for about ten years, and I still reread it periodically when I want a laugh. Mr. Price, you have at least one enthusiastic fan of "The Breaks"!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book should NOT be out of print!, April 26, 2000

By 

Alan - See all my reviews

This review is from: Breaks (Hardcover)

Richard Price is one of America's greatest authors. He is the millennial link between literature and cinema. And it is a sin that this book, the missing link between his early personal, cinematic works, and his later, directly cinematic social treatises, should be missing. The "Mickey's Monkey" scene alone is a classic.

2.0 out of 5 stars Richard Price Gives the Narrative THE BREAKS, November 23, 2011

By 

Stacy Helton (Chattanooga, TN) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Breaks: A Novel (Paperback)

Man do I love Richard Price. Anyone asks me to recommend an author, it's Richard Price. I have now read his entire oeuvre, minus CLOCKERS and FREEDOMLAND. I have, of course, seen those films, and picked up a copy of each at The Strand in New York City last week. But the others, including his most recent two, LUSH LIFE and SAMARTIAN, as well as his first two, BLOODBROTHERS and THE WANDERERS, are as five-star as a book can be. His third novel, 1978's LADIES' MAN is one of the top ten books of all time. So I really like Richard Price and I had saved this 1983 book for my NYC vacation. The newly reissued edition from Picador has the remarkable cover from the 1970s in the Times Square Subway Station and was so ripe for my collective desires that it seemed a slam dunk read. A week, four plane trips, multiple subway rides, lunch in the village and loading zone difficulties landed with a thud on a rainy, balmy Tuesday afternoon in November, back home. What's wrong? I'm not sure - the book seems so well-liked, and when it's covering familiar Priceian grounds - like NYC' seamy 1970s underbelly, the book sings with a beauty and a pathos that makes me want to highlight passages (an example: a trip to the Village: 'I bypassed the leafless barren field of Washington Square Park, later for nature, and wandered up and down the Cabinet of Dr. Caligari streets wishing I was everybody I saw.' As someone who spent several hours in the village last week that line reads both poetic and true. BUT for some reason most of this story is the tale of college graduate Peter Keller of the Bronx who returns to his college campus to teach and involve himself with an unexciting, beyond-formulaic relationship with a disaffected townie. There are sparks, as when he goes to a 1972-era gay club in the village and delivers a comic monologue, that when he returns to the campus there is no holding onto the story and you so want to see Keller's life among the characters in New York City and his career as a Lenny Bruce-esque observor. An early segment has him working at what we now know to be a telemarketing center, with an oddball assortment of actors and dancers working the phone lines. I'm not sure why Price felt the need to place the novel ten years prior to the publication date. He even sloppily outs David Berkowitz as the Son of Sam three years before the murders. I don't want this to ruin your recommendation that you carry from me on Richard Price, and you may love this - many do! However, I have given you five (5) very good (5) star books in which to begin.