Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent 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 illustrated by 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 toward 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 a theme that most 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: 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: Eerie Insight into Human Nature
Review: Agee has done something utterly amazing through this lyrical, slow-moving work. You often feel as if you moving through a dream - or, perhaps, a world running in slow motion where you can anticipate what will happen but you can't do anything to stop it.As the book starts off, a boy is making a trip to town with his dad. The boy worries about making his dad proud. The dad worries about his boy's perception of him. The dad is also incredibly lonely...and you begin to get attached to him, but you don't want to get too attached because you know he won't be around too much longer. (My apologies if this ruins the story, but I'm pretty sure this is well known.) As you become introduced to the rest of the characters, you realize that everyone is honorable (for the most part) and that their internal concerns & worries just comes out of their being human. For example, though the father is lonely, it's not because he has a horrible wife. In fact, he has a wonderful wife...but he is trying to wade through the complexity of relationships, internal peace and life in general. And so are all the characters. The story progresses slowly, predictably, and you watch as the characters all act & react in various ways. Agee allows you to see the world through each character's eyes, and then how the world perceives that character. This narrative style leaves you feeling compassionate for each member of the family whereas it would normally be easy to be annoyed with or dismissive of many of the characters. It is also worth mentioning how honest and thoughtful Agee is in showing his characters' motivations and flaws. When the little boy learns that his father has died, the loss completely goes over his head. Instead, he tries to leverage this event for popularity from the schoolchildren. "Surely they will be nice to me today," he thinks. Later, when the mother kneels to pray, her aunt has amazing insight that the mother is praying not from her heart but rather from pride - praying what she thinks a holy woman would pray in such a circumstance. Such commentary on our actions and motivations can hit a little close to home...but I believe it must have come from his own experience. He never condemns his characters...he just lets them be fully human. As I said in the beginning, I believe this work to be a true masterpiece. Though I was often horrified by the true despairing picture he portrayed, my mind was also deeply impressed by the truth he conveyed. And he does give hope, after his own fashion.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Handful of Great American Novels
Review: Agee, who gave us the words to Walker Evans' photoessay "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" and the script for the African Queen, was a genius. Like may geniuses he was erratic. I cannot read Let Us Now Praise Famous Men. I find it Joycian in all the worst senses of that word. But A Death in the Family is a different story.
If you read this and have the courage to really let it sink into you, you will feel the extraordinary pain of a family torn apart by a pedestrian but tragic event - an automobile crash. The shock hits you. The grief overcomes you. You feel the loss. In short, you understand. That is what all artists strive to do and what Agee stunningly succeeds at here.
The beauty here is the beauty of truth, mainlined slowly into your being. This is a book that can and probably will change the reader.
Several reviews have mentioned the breathtaking prelude "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" and some mention the Samuel Barber soprano version of this. To me that Barber piece ranks as one of the great American musical moments. That two such enormous accomplishments should derive from one small book is a tribute to the power and brilliance of James Agee at his finest.
Rating:
Summary: Death, religion, family and hurt feelings
Review: I do not know much about James Agee's personal history, but one wonders whether there was a degree of biography in this profound account of a family torn apart by an untimely death. The time and setting certainly fit with Agee's own upbringing. In any event, he poignantly captures the conflicting emotions of a wife who is trying to cope with the loss of her partner and mate in his prime, and how to reconcile that loss with her strong, self-effacing religious beliefs. The church, or religion in general, is not given a good face in this work, particularly in the guise of the Catholic Father, and in the struggle that Mary undergoes in trying to be strong and suppressing her emotional grief, in the name of that religion. I was appalled by the stern and unforgiving body language and words conveyed by the priest towards the young children who had just been given news of their father's death. His actions and attitudes may be a sign of those times, but the reactions of the children towards the priest, of guilt, shame and conflictedness, when all they should have felt was comfort and consolation, demonstrates the type of stern and unyielding religious arrogance that is at the heart of this story. Obviously, religious conflict had a long and divisive, in some senses unspoken, history in the family profiled here. Those differences exploded after the tragedy occurred. Also, the reactions and feelings of Rufus in particular, and also his younger sister, and his sense of pride and accomplishment in telling of his father's death to his schoolmates, is shocking, yet real. A child cannot adequately come to terms with the finality of death, and perhaps the saddest line in the book is Rufus pondering whether news of his father's death might prompt some of his schoolmates (who he obviously feels intimidated by and fearful of) to share their lunches with him. His reactions are bewildered, and his mother is unable to console him or help him cope with the devastation of his father's death, with she herself struggling with whether to grieve or praise God. This is a very profound work and while parts of it were difficult to access - some of the large parts in italics - the emotion was raw and real. It is a story I will remember for a long time.
Rating:
Summary: A well deserved Pulitzer winner
Review: I finished A Death in the Family last night and still have the feeling that I'm carrying it around within me. Agee's prose is some of the most beautiful I've ever read, and his power to translate those intuitive, often untranslatable moments of life into engaging paragraph after paragraph awed me. The book is worth buying for the beautiful prologue alone. This is definitely not a light read, and I found it difficult emotionally, but I am glad I read it and recommend it to anyone looking to be transported by great literature. May James Agee rest in peace.
Rating:
Summary: A book worth reading
Review: I first read A Death In The Family for a book report for my English class. At first, it started out slow and i wanted to quit, but i kept going and read the whole thing. When i finished the book, I realized that the book was one of the most touching books i have ever read. James Agee really brings the emotion of each character to life. I really recommend this book to everyone.
Rating: 
Summary: So this is how it ends: with a whimper...
Review: James Agee's 1955 novel "A Death in the Family" is considered a classic by some. To me, it is overhyped, and utterly joyless. Mixed in with an interesting story of a young family picking up the pieces after the father dies in a car accident, is the worst "poetic" ramlbings I've ever read. Did Agee really have to break through the flow of the story with annoying musings that make no sense? The mother, a morbid Catholic, tries to deal with death and her husband's lack of faith. Her brother, Andrew, is easily the best character. With skepticism of religion, and his conflicted emotions, he is an understandable character. Major boos to a santicmonous "man of God" in the novel.
Rating:
Summary: Captures beautifully Knoxville Summer of 1915
Review: My interest in this book came about after seeing a performance of Samuel Barber's opera "Knoxville Summer of 1915". Before the performance there was reading from "A Death in the Family" the book for which the opera was named. A few days later I purchased the book. When I began reading I immediately understood why Agee's writing would inspire such a beautiful piece of music. No, the book is not perfect. It is tedious and repetitive in spots and some parts just don't work, but it is some of the most beautiful prose I have ever read. Agee does a wonderful job of capturing the world from a child's point of view: the almost dream-like descriptions of the Rufus' environment; the love and trust he has invested in his parents,in God and in the world; the sleepy sense that time is moving slowly for him etc. I believe the book is well worth the read despite the rough spots. As another reviewer pointed out the book was unfinished at the time of the author's death, and I believe this certainly accounts for many of the rough spots. It also offers a unique chance to see a published novel as somewhat of a work in progress and to learn something about the writing process. This is one of my most cherished books.
Rating:
Summary: Under the circumstances...
Review: This book is one of those classics you've never heard of. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1958. I've had it on my shelf for a while. I probably would have had a completely different perspective on it had I read it six months ago. Recently, one of my best friends died in a freak bike accident. I'm not sure what made me decide to read this book now-if I was looking for insight, answers, or just trying to relive it again. I definitely relived it. I suppose anyone who has ever lost a loved one suddenly could relate to many parts of this story. But for me, the book was eerily similar to my own experience. It's about a man, Jay Follett, a father of two, who dies one night in a car crash. Through the eyes of Jay's wife, his son, and his brother, Agee paints an incredibly moving picture of a family struggling under the weight of Jay's death. By switching views, he blends innocence, anger, tenderness, and love in a way that, somehow, conveys all these emotions at once. I feel like I lived this story two months ago, and everything about it rang true to me. There were no answers to help explain anything, but this book is a beautiful articulation of what it's like to suddenly have life turned inside out in the worst way. And the opening chapter is one of the most touching I have ever read.
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