A Death in the Family (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: James Agee
- First Published: 1957
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Psychological fiction, Domestic realism
- Subjects: Family or family life, Mothers, Parents and children, South or Southerners, Marriage, Religion, 1910’s, Emotions, Death or dying, Funeral rites or ceremonies, Bereavement or grief, Boys, Mortality
- Locales: South (U.S.), Knoxville, TN
Jay Follett is called away by the message that his father, some distance away in the backcountry, is gravely ill. It will prove to be a false alarm, but another telephone call announces to Jay’s wife, Mary, that Jay’s car has gone off the road. The extended family gathers, but it is the children, Rufus and his younger sister, Catherine, who are the center of Agee’s attention. As a sensitive but unsentimental portrait of childhood, with its full pain and sharp tactile and visual detail, its fleeting thoughts and lasting damage, this novel has rarely been equalled.
The plot,...
[The entire page is 535 words long]
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