Unfortunately, the old mean librarian wouldn't let me renew this book, so I didn't finish the last 100 pages. But I did enjoy what I read.

A Death in the Family, first of all, is very well written. The prose is very beautiful and complex. The story is somewhat slow-moving, and the plot was more of a character study than anything else. It did take me a few chapters though, to get all the characters straight, especially Ralph and Rufus, whom I would often confuse. I didn't really have a particular problem with this book, but I wasn't compelled by it. Given the option of reading this and watching TV, I chose TV most of the time. This book was not bad, and I did enjoy what I read, but I was never excited or caught up in it. ( )

Had to read this in high school. ( )

Amerika begin twintigste eeuw. De hoofdpersoon, Rufus, groeit op in een typisch middenklasse gezin dat wordt bestierd door een (over)zorgzame moeder en een vader die ijvert voor deelname aan de groeiende welvaart. De periode waarin dit boek zich afspeelt kan het best gekenmerkt worden door de duiding dat in die periode -zo rond 1915- de lagere klassen de mogelijkheden zagen ontstaan om een trapje hoger op de maatschappelijke (=materiële) ladder te komen. Tegen het einde van het boek wordt dat fraai beschreven: ‘Sommige mensen hebben het verschrikkelijk moeilijk. Geen geld, geen goede scholing, amper genoeg te eten. Geen van die dingen die jullie allemaal hebben, kinderen, behalve lieve mensen die van ze houden. Zo is jullie pappa begonnen. Hij had helemaal niets. Hij heeft voor ieder klein dingetje moeten werken tot hij er zowat bij neerviel’.
Ik denk dat die periode zo ongeveer overeenkomt met ‘onze’ jaren vijftig en zestig. De tijden dat in sommige gezinnen de eerste auto werd aangeschaft en de dagjes-uit wat meer gemeengoed werden. Enfin, het boek ademt die periode.

Gezins- en familieomstandigheden worden uitvoerig en vol van details verhaald, terwijl het jonge leven van Rufus zich ontrolt zoals voor ieder ander gemiddeld kind. Totdat de vader ten gevolge van een auto-ongeluk overlijdt en een totaal ander levensmechanisme zich manifesteert. Het gezin wordt weer een cocon waarbij eerdere familieverbanden in een ander daglicht komen te staan (erg eufemistisch uitgedrukt) en het kind zijn uiterste best moet doen om het verlies te verwerken. Dit deel van het boek is buitengewoon mooi gecomponeerd.

De wereld mét en zonder vader, getekend met een groot inlevingsvermogen: ’Mijn pappa is dood, zei hij langzaam in zichzelf, en toen zei hij het schuchter hardop: mijn pappa is dood. Niemand in zijn blikveld scheen het te hebben gehoord; hij sprak tot niemand in het bijzonder. Mijn pappa is dood, zei hij nog eens, vooral voor zichzelf. Het klonk krachtig,degelijk en geloofwaardig, en hij wist dat hij het zo nodig tegen anderen zou zeggen’.

De eerste druk verscheen in 1957, en is nu nog springlevend ! ( )

Although Library Thing thinks this is the same book as the l957 A Death...it isn't. Agee died before his final edit, but all the work was there. The 1957 editors took quite a few liberties in rearranging his material (see the restored version for details)--it was still a great book. This restored version is even better. Much better. I was stunned by the first version, amazed by the second. Too bad he drank and smoked himself to death at the age of 46; we lost a lot of great writing. ( )

“On the rough cut grass of the back yard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there….The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than mine, quiet, with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds.” -Page 7

James Agee's posthumously awarded Pulitzer Prize winning novel is thought to be based on his own life (his middle name is Rufus, just like the son in the story). Set in Knoxville, Tennessee in the summer of 1915, Rufus is enjoying all that is right with the world. A loving father that takes him to the movies and allows him other indulgences that his mother wouldn't approve of, a great aunt who dotes on him and purchases for him the cap he fancies and an extended family that showers him with love. His biggest worry involves the boys who pick on him on his way to school. And then the unthinkable happens: his loving father Jay is killed suddenly in a car accident, returning from his parents’ house, several hundred miles away. His drunken brother called him in the middle of the night suggesting that their father was near death, which proved to be untrue and there lies the irony in this story.

The story is told mainly through the viewpoints of Jay’s wife Mary, brother Ralph and young son, Rufus. The magnificence of this book is its’ lyrical prose (the entire prologue reads as a poem). I found myself rereading parts of the book over and over again because of the beautiful sound of the verses. The story is, of course, morbidly sad, and, in the hands of a less skilled writer, would have been very distasteful. But Agee is terrific at making you empathize with these characters. After receiving the initial news about “a serious accident,” Mary and her Great Aunt Hannah, await the return of Mary’s brother, Andrew with news of Jay’s injuries and when he returns those three and Mary’s parents speak for hours about the tragedy. The author made me feel as if I was in the room with them because the give and take of their conversation was so well done.

Agee’s treatment of Catholic religion suggests that he had a bad experience with it in his own life. Although Mary and Hannah are very religious and fall back on their faith to get them through this tough time, the author is hard on the Catholic faith with the inclusion of the rigid and hard-nosed Father Jackson, and revealing that Andrew and Joel, Mary’s father, have little faith.

I love the way Agee made the story a refreshing one rather than the maudlin tale it could have turned into, by revealing that Jay was a flawed character, whom other characters had to warm up to. It would’ve been so easy for the author to fall into the trap of creating a character that was bigger than life.

My favorite character was Rufus. I loved the way his mind worked and how he analyzed all the difficulties he faced and presented them through his child-like innocence. In the prologue, Agee says, “We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee, in the time that I lived there so successfully disguised to myself as a child.” Rufus grew up in a hurry that summer. Highly recommended. ( )