The history of the Mustian family begins several years earlier than the setting of A Long and Happy Life. Milo is fifteen in A Generous Man. This is available in the collection Rosacoke and Her Kin, which includes A Generous Man, A Chain of Love, A Long and Happy Life and Good Hearts. It is published by Scribner Paperback Fiction.

The story of Price's 1984 bout with crippling spinal cancer, his interaction with the medical profession, and his recovery are examined by the author in A Whole New Life: An Illness and a Healing, published by Plume in 1995.

Many critics have pointed out the resemblance between Price's characters and the characters of fellow Southerner Carson McCullers in her 1940 classic The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, a story about the residents of a Georgia mill town who labor under a sense of...