A Death in the Family (Penguin Classics)

Imagine, if you will, a group of family members, sitting around a recently deceased corpse arguing religion and theodicy - strong, literary, atheistic men on one side, weaker, pious women on the other- with the piquancy that only a recent death of one close to them all could possibly have brought about. Then, add to this a little boy looking upon all this and trying to make sense of it all, while trying to come to terms with his father's death. You now have the setting, if not the summary, of this book.The men reflect on Thomas Hardy and Macbeth (Joel) and Shelley (Andrew) while the women mumble prayers and are bullied by a priest. When they first learn of the death Joel ruminates about his falling out with his wife, Hannah, that, "...Besides, that had never been the real estrangement; it was the whole stinking morass of churchliness that really separated them, and now that was apt to get worse rather than better. Apt? Dead certain to." And Joel is correct, it is "dead certain" to get worse. And it does.Agee portrays the women sympathetically, but as essentially weak, pulling out old rosaries and succumbing to a sanctimonious priest who keeps a figurative whip of morality beneath his soutane and true viciousness under his unctuous smile. The widow, Mary, is finally defeated thusly: "For before, she had at least been questioning, however gently. But now she was wholly defeated and entranced, and the transition to prayer was the moment and mark of her surrender."The book does manage to convey of how terrible and heart-rending it is to deal with mortality through the autobiographical prose-poems in the mind of the boy, Rufus: "That this little boy whom he inhabited was only the cruelest of deceits. That he was but the nothingness of nothingness, condemned by some betrayal. That yet in that desolation, he was not without companions. For featureless on the abyss, invincible, moved monstrous intuitions. And from the depth and wide throat of eternity burned the cold, delirious chuckle of rare monsters beyond rare monsters, cruelty beyond cruelty."It's all a bit plodding and belaboured for my taste, strong stuff for a lad. Agee, here and in Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, just couldn't seem to fashion from his work a convincing world. So many different worlds and styles war with another within the book that one is scarcely surprised at all that he died with it incomplete.Perhaps, as so many proclaim, this work is a masterpiece. But I myself just don't see it. There are some fine lines and paragraphs which, taken alone, are quite stellar. But plodding through this morass of death and religiosity, this mishmash of styles, does not comport with my experience of reading a masterwork.Please, feel free to disagree.

The word darkness is found about 45 times in this novel, which is the primary feeling I got while reading. Mary Lynch Follett, a profoundly religious woman, endures the death of her young husband as she prepares to manage single-mothering her two young children, Rufus and Catherine. Jay Follett, her husband, had been called to the country by his alcoholic brother Ralph to visit their supposedly terminally ill father. Unfortunately, it turns out that Ralph has not sized up the situation accurately, and Jay gets into a fatal car accident on the way home from his unnecessary visit.Mary’s brother Andrew identifies Jay’s body and obtains the accident details to share with Mary, their parents, and Aunt Hannah. All provide varying levels of support for Mary as she tells her children about their father’s death and copes with the tragedy. Mary’s Catholic faith, which she does not share with Jay and all family members, is an asset and a handicap as the dreadful hours leading up to the funeral.James Agee’s Pulitzer-winning book makes quite a statement about love and tragedy. Religious conflict within the family provided a significant theme for the novel. As the story advances, it forced me to wonder about the value of organized religion, especially the Catholic church. The children, ages six and three, are depicted with very sophisticated thoughts. I thought about how many adults still underestimate the minds and perceptions of children. Agee seemed concerned and aware that euphemisms and incomplete explanations often baffle children and lead to lifelong misunderstandings and resentments.

I had to read this book for a class that I am taking. The author is wonderful and the novel is extremely well-written. There are entire scenes and paragraphs where you can feel every emotion simply by the way the narrator describes his surroundings. I recommend the book itself to anyone that enjoys novels where the language and descriptions take center stage. That is not to say that the character and plot are lacking, but if you are looking for the fast-paced style of a Palahniuk, this would not be for you. Agee takes his time introducing you to this world.That said, I bought this on the Kindle. I prefer to go digital whenever possible to avoid the manufacturing/shipping/printing costs to the environment of traditional books. I LOVE to hold a good book and curl up with it, but with my appetite for them I find digital to be a more responsible option for the planet. This book was significantly more as a digital edition than the paperback edition. I wrote to Amazon and Penguin to register my complaints. I understand that they are still working out how to price these, but let's no pretend that a digital book is less of a value to the consumer than a paper book in the long run.I cannot loan the digital copy to a friend. I cannot sell it to a secondhand bookstore when I am done with it. I can read it on my device or other devices that can handle that format but that is all. Yes, it is convenient but not several dollars more convenient. As an Amazon Prime customer I would receive the book in two days with no shipping charges if I ordered the printed version. The paperback was $10.88 (same at other retailers) and the Kindle edition was [...]. This is not a major price difference but we should not be forced to pay more for something that provides us with less. I hope Amazon and the book publishers will begin to price books more fairly for consumers. At the very least the prices should be consistent with the lowest price version still in print.

What truly stood out for me in this story was the way Agee describes the thoughts and emotions of the characters. From Catherine and Rufus to Mary, Uncle Andrew, and Grandpa, the inner thoughts and emotions of the characters is beautifully descriptive and incredibly realistic. What a great story.

Agee wrote a fine book about the disruption an event has on a collection of people, especially the children. Not light reading, but one of those books that give you a glimpse into the human condition. A work of art.

Characters, situation, and plot are the usual priorities critics use when discussing a novel. Structure often barely gets a look in, which is what makes James Agee’s A Death in the Family such an unusual book. The entire narrative consists of one event – the death in a car crash of Jay Follet – the few hours before it, and its immediate aftermath. The event is told by several different characters; Jay himself, his wife Mary, her Aunt Hannah, her brother Andrew, her two children Rufus and Catherine, and for a brief few passages, her parents.These aren’t different versions of the same event they are different points of view. The narrative keeps running, it’s just being run in relays by different individuals, and it gives the reader the impression that everything is happening in ‘real’ time, and its only at the end of the book where the time needed for the various funeral arrangements is speeded up in the last fifty or so pages.Because it feels like what we’re reading is happening in real time it’s all the more frustrating to witness each event and emotion portrayed in fine detail, such as the what seems to be ‘crying of wolf’ by Jay’s drunken brother Ralph, and that Jay’s father is not at death’s door, and that the car journey in the early hours of the morning was never necessary in the first place. There are beautiful atmospherics. Part of the car journey involves taking a ferry. Jay is lucky…doesn’t have to wait long in the dark for the ferryman, but when they arrive on the other side of the river Jay sees there’s a farmer and his wife who’ve been waiting for hours, shouting in vain into the dark for the ferryman, with their produce for a market for which they will now be late. It’s this frustration and excruciating sensation which the reader feels as every component of the narrative as it is revealed to us. Tiny details involving the consumption and preparation of eggs and hot milk by Mary before Jay’s useless car journey. Jay’s death is no spoiler because its all in the blurb on the back of the book!There are two elements which serve to counterpoint the misery of the experience of the adults. The first is the fascinating and unusual insertion into the narrative of three internal monologues (in italics) in Rufus’ voice. The first in advance of Part 1, the second at the end of Part 1, and the third at the end of Part 2 (there are 3 parts in total). Agee’s novel was published posthumously and these additions were found with the main manuscript – but with no indication from the author as to exactly where they might belong in the narrative. The second element which in my view gives this novel a sky-high lift to the reader’s enjoyment, is the events seen through the eyes of the two children. So often in literature the child’s view confirms to the reader how awful it is being a child. We get that, but what we also are given is a view which is of a dimension so different from the adult that I guarantee that in spite of the gravity of events you will giggle, you will chuckle!

Long, repetitious, boring, interspersed with some brilliant passages. Particularly the first passages of the book. Won a Pulitzer. Okay, but the author died, and it was finished by someone else, I understand. Maybe that was the problem. Anyway, the whole thing was a struggle, and I started skipping.

I just couldn't get through it. Very confusing with the italicized additions...I had no idea what was going on. Too 'poetic' for me.

This book was "over-described" by the vendor who claimed it showed only a little wear on the pages. The cover was bent, torn, folded and stained, and the interior pages were yellowed, some folded. Not as advertised!