A Death in the Family

Rating:
Summary: The prelude is the best part
Review: "A Death in the Family" is one of those books that falls into the "great works tarnished by high school English class" category. I read this book in the Tenth grade and garnered no sense of its raw literary power at that time since my teacher was more interested in using it to bash Catholicism than to explore its wonderful prose.

Many years later I read the book again while living abroad. Since I was not in an English speaking environment the language and mood of the novel were even more evocative.

I was astounded when I reread the essay called "Knoxville Summer of 1915" that precedes the rest of the novel. This is one of the most beautiful and most effective pieces of English I have ever come across. Agee describes a child's observation of his neighbors evening activities in their back yard in a subtle sequence of events. The essay mixes dreamy metaphor with detailed observation in a slow, rhythmic description. The child observes the rolled up shirt sleeves of fathers watering their lawn after dinner and then tells himself that now the night is a "blue dew". The genius behind this is how the child makes the transition for detailed observation to poetic descriptions of the entire experience.

The rest of the novel is wonderful in parts but hardly equals the opening essay. Agee is very talented at conveying character, dialog, and mood. We sense the warmth of family life before the father's death and the absolute confusion and bewilderment that follow. It is very painful to read about how the narrator, as an awkward child, is momentarily accepted by his classmates because his father's death is a new and interesting topic for them. It is a terrible thing that in a roundabout way, the callousness of the boy's classmates converts his father's death into a moment of joy. But it is also one of life's realistic irony.

The subject matter of this book is tragic and even in its most poetic parts its mood is very grim. You may want to keep this in mind before reading it.

Rating:
Summary: The prelude is the best part
Review: "A Death in the Family" is one of those books that falls into the "great works tarnished by high school English class" category. I read this book in the Tenth grade and garnered no sense of its raw literary power at that time since my teacher was more interested in using it to bash Catholicism than to explore its wonderful prose.

Many years later I read the book again while living abroad. Since I was not in an English speaking environment the language and mood of the novel were even more evocative.

I was astounded when I reread the essay called "Knoxville Summer of 1915" that precedes the rest of the novel. This is one of the most beautiful and most effective pieces of English I have ever come across. Agee describes a child's observation of his neighbors evening activities in their back yard in a subtle sequence of events. The essay mixes dreamy metaphor with detailed observation in a slow, rhythmic description. The child observes the rolled up shirt sleeves of fathers watering their lawn after dinner and then tells himself that now the night is a "blue dew". The genius behind this is how the child makes the transition for detailed observation to poetic descriptions of the entire experience.

The rest of the novel is wonderful in parts but hardly equals the opening essay. Agee is very talented at conveying character, dialog, and mood. We sense the warmth of family life before the father's death and the absolute confusion and bewilderment that follow. It is very painful to read about how the narrator, as an awkward child, is momentarily accepted by his classmates because his father's death is a new and interesting topic for them. It is a terrible thing that in a roundabout way, the callousness of the boy's classmates converts his father's death into a moment of joy. But it is also one of life's realistic irony.

The subject matter of this book is tragic and even in its most poetic parts its mood is very grim. You may want to keep this in mind before reading it.

Rating:
Summary: A Death in the family: a twisting tale
Review: "Have to double the charge mister, cross at night" he said.
"You generally always come o' Sundays, yer womurn couple o' young-un's?"
"Yeahp"
This is generally the way Jams Agee wrote in a death in the Family. This would be a typical conversation between to African American men in the 1940s
The setting is a very important aspect of this novel. Agee writes about what he sees in everyday life in the cold winter of the 1940s. If it had been set in the summer it would not have been as powerful. Also it would not have shown the struggles of an African American family if it was set at a different time.
The diction in Agee's novel plays the most important role in telling the story. Agee writs what he hears people saying. Just as if it was right in front of a person.
An example of this would be "till", "don't believe"
The characters in this novel make the story come to life. These people are the typical people of this time. There's Jay, his wife, their two kids, Uncle Ralph, grandma and grandpa Follet. There is a very exciting twist in the book when Jay goes to check on his father (grandpa Follet).
A Death in the family is a very exciting book. It contains a lot of twists and turns. You'll never want to put it down.

Rating:
Summary: A Moving Novel About a Heartbreaking Loss
Review: A Death in the Family by James Agee is a profound novel about the heartbreaking loss of a loved one and how the family deals with the unexpected loss. The novel also encompasses the rehabilitation of the family Late one night in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1915, Jay Follet receives a phone call that his father is on the verge of death. Jay urgently rushes out of his house to care for his dying father. It turns out that the phone call was a false alarm. While on his way home Jay Follet is killed in a car wreck. A Death in the family is a deeply descriptive novel. Agee took the time to describe things in order that the readers feel that they are actually experiencing the events that take place in the novel. Agee's lenghty descriptions could be compared to the lenghty descriptions of Charles Dickens. Through flashbacks to Jay with his son Rufus, James Agee beautifully illustrates the close relationship Jay Follet had with his family, especially his son. The flashbacks help to define the closeness of this one particular family. Without them the story would have lacked the strength that came across in the final product. Ithoroughly enjoyed a Death in the Family. It is a provocative novel that moved me to tears when I read it. I would recommend this novel to anybody who has lost somebody who was close to themselves.

Rating:
Summary: Eloquent Portrayal of Loss
Review: A Death in the Family is a timeless novel about the impact death causes within a family. The story is told through Rufus Follet, a six-year-old who loses his father in a car accident. This novel beautifully illustrates the numb reaction of family members to death.

Agee uses the technique of flashbacks to give the reader background on some of the characters. Agee died while perfecting A Death in the Family and had not yet inserted these sections, so the publishers placed them at the beginning of each part of the novel. Because these flashbacks are not inserted logically, they are somewhat confusing, but they are not worthless. Flashbacks develop Rufus' personality and his longing to be accepted. They illustrate his relationship with his father and why he reacts in the manner that he does to his father's death. These flashbacks also reveal what life was like before the accident and how that happiness died along with Jay. They also give a detailed description of a middle class neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1915.

The story also illustrates the conflict between a man's wife and immediate family after his death. This conflict is portrayed through Jay's brother, Ralph. Ralph is an undertaker and wants to take care of Jay's body because he feels responsible for the death. It was his drunken phone call that caused Jay to drive out to see his family. Mary does not want Ralph to be the undertaker because Jay's body is already being taken care of and she does not want to move it. Ralph's feelings are hurt, but he can not do anything because a widow's wishes are more important than those of the family.

Agee takes a critical tone towards the Catholic religion and especially with its priests. My favorite scene is the episode where Mary can feel the presence of her husband in the room. It brings up the conflict between Mary's father and her brother Andrew, who do not believe in God, and Mary and her aunt Hannah, who are strong believers of Catholicism. Agee showed his view of priests through the children's reaction to Father Jackson, the priest that visits their mother. The children listen in on their mother's conversation with the priest and feel that he is trying to hurt and defeat her. The children also fear the priest, and Rufus feels that his father would have killed him if he were still alive.

One of the most poignant scenes in the novel occurs when Mary has to tell her children that their father is dead. Rufus understands almost right away that his father has died and he will never see him again. But his younger sister Catherine has a little more trouble. As their aunt is explaining the details of their father's death, Catherine asks the innocent question, "When's Daddy coming home?" My eyes welled up at reading this scene.

I liked this book because it portrays an event that people can relate to at some time or another in their own lives. Agee did a wonderful job at giving the story the numb feeling that members of a family often feel immediately after a death. The characters are well developed and I found it easy to relate to them. I would recommend this book to those who have recently suffered a loss.

Rating:
Summary: World according to Rufus/Kathryn
Review: A fascinating tale of a "death in the family" experienced and seen through various eyes, wife's, brother-in-law, aunt and two small children. An unforgettable account of human emotions, empathy, love, misery, sadness, too gruesome to imagine. The irony is that this book was published after James Agee passed away. We can all relate to Rufus when he describes in detail the taunts, ridicule he endures from the older boys. It is a very shaky and unsafe world seen through young impressionable unsure eyes. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: beautiful
Review: A gentle, observant, moving look at one family's encounter with loss and grief. Amazing.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written and fast-moving
Review: A moving description of a sudden death in the nuclear family and how life changes for the remaining parent and two children. Well written and fast-moving. I had a hard time putting it down.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written and fast-moving
Review: A moving description of a sudden death in the nuclear family and how life changes for the remaining parent and two children. Well written and fast-moving. I had a hard time putting it down.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreaking...
Review: A thoroughly moving portrayal of death; I freely admit that portions of the book had me close to tears. The characters are beautifully simple people and because their lives are so ordinary, it is easier for a reader to empathize with their loss. I'm not sure that "Death" is what you would call a "great novel" - very little happens - but at the very least it's some "great writing" and almost always manages to strike an authentic chord.