A Death in the Family
by James Agee
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Read in April, 2008
recommended to Monica by:
mom and dad
This Bantam edition I guess I've had since 1983. It says it's the 13th printing and portions were previously published in The Partisan Review, The Cambridge Review, The New Yorker, and Harper's Bazaar: all publications worthy of such incredible writing. One half to three quarters of the way through, I felt like I was reading an outstanding classic like F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Tender Is The Night", or something the caliber of a great Eugene O'Neill play, with brilliant dialogue, insightf...more
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Read in September, 2007
recommends it for:
those who appreciate the hidden mystery of the emotional moment
This isn't a difficult book but it's certainly not traditional. There is practically no profluence beyond the natural causality of a single incident--the death of a good man. In other words, there are no surprises, nothing is coming that you don't already know, no real "narrative" reason to turn the page.
Rather, the book is held together by a string of incredibly detailed descriptions of highly emotional moments in one family's life. The vivid inner lives of the characters that Ag...more
Rather, the book is held together by a string of incredibly detailed descriptions of highly emotional moments in one family's life. The vivid inner lives of the characters that Ag...more
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recommended to Khaya by:
Book club
This month's book club selection. I see why this got good reviews, but I just didn't enjoy reading it. The topic was extremely depressing, and the pacing exceedingly slow. The writing and characterization were good, and he really captured every possible nuance of the father's death and the surrounding relatives' reactions. However, he chose to do this by recording every single movement, thought, and bit of dialogue, for example, even when things had to be repeated for the deaf grandmother, h...more
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Read in January, 2008
This book was at its best when it was describing the environment and when it was in the head of Jay's child, Rufus. The opening section was magnificently beautiful. The main problem, I think, was with the editing. The editor called this novel a "near perfect work of art," implying that even in its relatively unfinished state, it was already as good as it could be. I disagree. There are some major structural issues here, and the editor, through his glowing admiration, seems to igno...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
all good southerners
Another book that I didn't intend to spend so much time on.
This book is by James Agee who won the Pulitzer Prize for this work. I was interested in this when I found out it was the true account of the reaction of his family to his father's death when he was six years old growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee.
This book was beautifully written. It's not largely plot propelled. You have an idea going into it what it's about, and there are no surprises. The time span is over about four da...more
This book is by James Agee who won the Pulitzer Prize for this work. I was interested in this when I found out it was the true account of the reaction of his family to his father's death when he was six years old growing up in Knoxville, Tennessee.
This book was beautifully written. It's not largely plot propelled. You have an idea going into it what it's about, and there are no surprises. The time span is over about four da...more
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Read in October, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
Agee was working with so many different points of view, with being inside the psyche of adults and children, struggling through the depth and complexity of their thoughts and feelings. He must not have been able to keep at the intensity required to pull this book from the innermost recesses of his soul for long periods. And even with its richness and complexity, I feel that he was probably still working on the prose - there is a longing incompleteness to the book. There is a genuineness about...more
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Read in October, 2007
This book was mostly a character study - not much action. But the problem was that I didn't really like any of them that much. All of the main characters were grappling with personal issues that were heightened by and examined in light of this death in their family. The most likable characters were the children, although it is unbelievable that at age six one could be so perceptive and intuitive. But I was also interested in the issues of the adults which mostly revolved around vastly differ...more
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Read in November, 2007
There's a lot I liked about this, not the least being its simplicity: the novel is essentially a portrait of grief, but succeeds in being absorbing and fresh, mostly for its clean, lyrical prose and psychological acuity. I'd also argue that this book is something of a critique of the Church and religion in general, which I'm always up for. But I made the mistake of reading first the editors' note, which insists that though the book was unfinished (put together and published posthumously), it's a...more
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recommends it for:
book club
I am about 75 pages in. This is beautifully written--it can be slow at times, but my frustration with that is more a product of general impatience and desire to get immediate satisfaction from a read than it is a measure of how good the book is... I hate how easily I get bored sometimes.
I continued to feel this way up until almost the end of the book. It was quite amazing, though, how very much Agee climbed into the heads of the two children, Rufus and Catherine. The book was published post...more
I continued to feel this way up until almost the end of the book. It was quite amazing, though, how very much Agee climbed into the heads of the two children, Rufus and Catherine. The book was published post...more
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recommends it for:
everyone, but particularly fans of poetic prose, people interested in Southern lit
This is my favorite book, and it's totally under-read and underrated. It is about, well, a death in the family- a man who dies and leaves behind a young family. It's also about Tennessee and the early twentieth century and the American Southern neighborhood and parenthood and childhood and marriage and love and Catholicism and personal failure.
The prose is nakedly honest, naturally rhapsodic...really, really gorgeous stuff. Once you've read Agee you never go back, you never find better words...more
The prose is nakedly honest, naturally rhapsodic...really, really gorgeous stuff. Once you've read Agee you never go back, you never find better words...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
the emotionally unafraid
I feel a great keening of the spirit. In its quaint (but also ballsy), early twentieth-century way, this is one of the truest, rarest books I have ever read. Even as it is unabashedly poetic, with crystalline, carefully-chosen words, the plot absorbs the reader from word one. And of course in its moment-by-moment account of what it is like, for the first time, to experience the death of a central figure in one's life, we are brought back to our own, most private memories, the ones kept in a dark...more
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Read in December, 1972
This is a simply beautiful book. I first read it in high school and it had a profound effect on me. Since then, I think I've read it several more times. Its themes of innocence and loss are relevant at any age, I think, unlike some novels one enjoys when younger that don't bear up as well when read again at a more mature age. (I'm thinking here of Thomas Wolfe in particular.)
An iconic American work, like To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye. I suspect many of the yo...more
An iconic American work, like To Kill a Mockingbird or Catcher in the Rye. I suspect many of the yo...more
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Read in January, 2006
Lyrical and beautiful, this book haunts you inescapably. I read the opening prose poem years ago in a creative writing workshop; a decade later, I decided to read the entire novel and found myself steamed with the quiet lyricism of Agee's prose. I am still stunned by that passage (which Samuel Barber later set to music for orchestra and soprano), and one line in particular, which resonates even now with a dignity that is lost to so many authors--
"We are talking now of summer ev...more
"We are talking now of summer ev...more
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Read in March, 2008
I guess the title should have been a dead-giveaway - but this book was pretty grim and depressing - in fact I quit after about half-way thru. It may very well be a great book, and Agee might be a great writer - The book tells the story of a sudden death in an early 1900's family from several perspectives - standard narrator along with several family members - ala prelude to Faulkner, stream-of-consciousness lite. The book was quite readable (easier than faulkner) but grim grim grim.
So th...more
So th...more
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Read in January, 2008
Huh. I didn't love this book. I liked it, but didn't find it gripping or even particularly memorable. I think I just prefer books with a more robust sense of plot.
I can think of at least one book of the "it's not the destination, it's the journey" type that I loved -- Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer -- but that one was a rare exception. A Death in the Family was a sinking into the experience of death for those left behind, an vignette of the life of a family endu...more
I can think of at least one book of the "it's not the destination, it's the journey" type that I loved -- Barbara Kingsolver's Prodigal Summer -- but that one was a rare exception. A Death in the Family was a sinking into the experience of death for those left behind, an vignette of the life of a family endu...more
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Read in January, 1994
Between this deeply affecting novel, his unforgettable screenplay for Davis Grubb's 'Night of the Hunter,' and his magnum opus, the towering and all-consuming 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men,' Agee is one of my very favorite writers. Agee's ability and desire to capture the moment in all its refractions and aspects make him one of the most challenging and rewarding authors out there, in the neighborhood of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner. This is one to read and re-read. There are two wonderf...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
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Read in August, 2007
recommends it for:
anyone
it seems like this book could really bring a girl down?- my initial thoughts quickly dispelled by the author's gift for storytrelling and prose. each chapter does not just introduce you to a family member, but slowly makes you understand him on his own level, so that when family tragedy occurs, you understand the reactions. of course it is sad, too.
another benefit is that is a quick quick read. don't be put off by the interjected pages- i think they make more sense later, but do add to the s...more
another benefit is that is a quick quick read. don't be put off by the interjected pages- i think they make more sense later, but do add to the s...more
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Read in January, 2006
I expected to hate this book: I had tried to read it once before, long ago, and was just not in the mood for it...does that seem to work for others, I wonder? So much of my enjoyment of a book depends on my mood/interests at the time I pick it up.
This is a superb story about a young fellow and the death of his father. Told from the youngster's perspective, but without anything at all smarmy or sticky-sweet, this very real slice of a long-gone America is worth at least a couple of reads.
This is a superb story about a young fellow and the death of his father. Told from the youngster's perspective, but without anything at all smarmy or sticky-sweet, this very real slice of a long-gone America is worth at least a couple of reads.
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2 comments
This complex, mutiple narrator book is a challenging read, but absolutely awesome. Complex person, but decent husband and father, Jay Follet is healthy, robust, and in the prime of life when he sets out from home one hot summer night to tend to his sick father. He leaves behind a wife and two small children, promising to return the next evening if at all possible. From this simple situation, Agee weaves an enthralling story of the complex ways that people deal with life, love, and loss.
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Read in January, 2008
Not bad, and the intensely internal, psychological approach was probably quite innovative for its time, but it didn't do a lot for me. I also read some lost chapters printed in Harper's recently, which didn't really add to the story, but does give a picture of the small family together, which oddly enough doesn't occur for any length of time in the novel. Odd, too, that seeing more of the mother and father in the additional chapters made them less distinctive.
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