As well as working my way through Anthony Trollope’s novels, I am also working my way through another list of books. Many years ago, when we got our first Kindle, we bought it second hand and it came with thousands of books. These books have sat in a folder on my One Drive ever since. This year I finally got around to reading them. In alphabetical order by author. Obviously.

I am still working my way through A (it’s A LOT of books), and have reached Agee, James and his book A Death in the Family.

Agee reportedly started writing the book in 1948 and it had not been published at the time of his death in 1955. It was posthumously published in 1957 using his original manuscripts, which were published as found with no editing or re-writing. The book as published includes a short story, Knoxville, Summer of 1915, which was a originally written as a short story, but has been placed as the opening of the book, and two scenes that were found, that took place earlier than the rest of the story. These have been inserted as flashbacks at the end of the first and second parts of the book. The rest is presented exactly as written by Agee and earned him a Pulitzer Prize

The story is autobiographical in nature, based on real events in the life of the author, who lost his father when just a child.

The book tells the story of sudden loss from varying perspectives, including six year old Rufus (Agee’s character) and his younger sister Catherine. In the middle of the night, Jay Follet receives a phone call from his drunk brother Ralph to tell him their father is seriously ill and he should come straight away. Jay sets off to on the journey to visit his father, who is not as ill as his brother has made out, and dies in a car crash on his way home. He leaves behind his fanatically religious wife, Mary, and his two children, Rufus and Catherine. The story follows them in their shock and grief as Mary learns of the accident, has to try and explain the loss to her children, and deals with the funeral arrangements. Most of the story is told from the perspective of Rufus as he tries to understand what it means that his father his dead, and what life will be like without him.

Agee’s writing style is very poetic in nature, and he spends a lot of time on his descriptions whether they be of thoughts and feelings or people and places. I did enjoy reading this book, but it didn’t grip me, the story moves very slowly, which is not necessary a negative, but in this case the slow pace was due more to his lengthy style of writing rather than the pace of the events. The whole book takes places over the course of just a few days, and not much actually happens in this time.

I would probably read another of his books, just to see if this was his usual style, or if it was a narrative choice for this particular book.

A further version of the book was released in 2007, A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author’s Text. This was produced by Michael Lofaro, a professor from the University of Tennesse, who, having found the original manuscripts and notes, claims that the original version was not as the author intended.

The original version of A Death in the Family can be found in all formats on Amazon, and the newer version can be found as part of The Collected Works of James Agee.