Death in the Family - Softcover

Agee-james

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0553233920 ISBN 13: 9780553233926

Publisher: Bantam, 1982

Synopsis

Forty years after its original publication, James Agee's last novel seems, more than ever, an American classic. For in his lyrical, sorrowful account of a man's death and its impact on his family, Agee painstakingly created a small world of domestic happiness and then showed how quickly and casually it could be destroyed.

On a sultry summer night in 1915, Jay Follet leaves his house in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tend to his father, whom he believes is dying. The summons turns out to be a false alarm, but on his way back to his family, Jay has a car accident and is killed instantly. Dancing back and forth in time and braiding the viewpoints of Jay's wife, brother, and young son, Rufus, Agee creates an overwhelmingly powerful novel of innocence, tenderness, and loss that should be read aloud for the sheer music of its prose.

"An utterly individual and original book...one of the most deeply worked out expressions of human feeling that I have ever read."--Alfred Kazin, New York Times Book Review

"It is, in the full sense, poetry....The language of the book, at once luminous and discreet...remains in the mind."--New Republic

"People I know who read A Death in the Family forty years ago still talk about it. So do I. It is a great book, and I'm happy to see it done anew."--Andre Dubus, author of Dancing After Hours and Meditations From A Moveable Chair

About this title

Review:

"[James Agee's words] are so indelibly etched someplace inside of me that I couldn't reach to rub them out even if I wanted to. And I never want to." -Steve Earle, from the Introduction "The work of a writer whose power with English words can make you gasp." -Alfred Kazin, "The New York Times Book Review" " It is, in the full sense, poetry. . . . The language of the book, at once luminous and discreet . . . remains in the mind." -"The New Republic" " Wonderfully alive." -"The New Yorker"

About the Author:

James Agee was born in Tennesse in 1909 and graduated from Harvard University. His renowned study of Alabama sharecroppers during the Depression, 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men', appeared in 1941. Agee was known for his movie reviews and screenplays, and published a volume of poetry and a novella. He died in 1955, two years before his major work of fiction, A Death in the Family, was published and won the Pulitzer Prize.

Blake Morrison was born in Skipton, Yorkshire, in 1950.His non-fiction books include And When Did You Last See Your Father? (1993), As If (1997), Too True (1998), Things My Mother Never Told Me (2002). His first novel, The Justification of Johann Gutenberg was published in 2000. Blake Morrison lives in London.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bantam
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0553233920
• ISBN 13: 9780553233926
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback