On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

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My first time reading an Agee.

My mother tells stories of shopping at Millers Dept Store in downtown knoxville as a little girl. And later on charging items to her mother’s account when she attended The University of Tennessee. Today’s downtown knoxville is full of good stores, food and theaters even better than 20+ years ago when I went to school there.

This is one of the most beautiful books I ever read, also one of the saddest. It is also an ode to Knoxville, so knowing the area would probably make it even better.

This book is wonderful but devastatingly heavy. Be in a very good emotional spot before embarking. That said, this is a book that shouldn’t be missed if the timing is right.

Agree Laura.

I’m just starting today. Only got though the prologue. After listening to a David Sedaris story while making chili this morning, I should be in a good emotional state. Thanks for the heads up, Laura.

This may sound strange, but I had a hard time getting into the flow of the prose at first. I am not a poetry reader (and he is a poet), so it took me a while to get my mind around the style of his writing. His sentence structure was different with so many long, drawn out sentences that didn't seem to end. He writes in such a poetic way and once I got the feel for it and the language, the story's depth became greater! I've finished but definitely would like another read now that I get it!

My first book by this author. I enjoyed the almost stream of consciousness of the beginning...prologue, Knoxville: Summer, 1915, especially all the sounds. The sound of the water hose and the locusts. Really took me back to one summer when I was a teenager and the locusts came out, such a sound that summer, and we found their little husks later. They were supposed to have come last summer. Did they? I don't recollect hearing them at all. Was my head so full of the coronavirus that I couldn't hear them?

Now, the water hose is an ever-present summer sound in the evenings because I have two young grandsons that like to play in the water, especially one of them, who can spend a lot of time appreciating the different sprays of water the nozzle can elicit.

This entire passage took me back to far-off summer days of my youth when we'd take a quilt into our backyard for a picnic and play will our dolls all day under the mimosa tree. Everyone I loved was full of life and vitality and I felt safe & loved. Here in this story, the narrator sees some sorrow that is coming...."who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth..."

I'm in.

I agree with Diane Barnes. It is one of the most beautifully written novels I have ever read. I searched through the Trail's archive
and found our group discussion in March 2013. Following are excerpts. To find the complete discussion visit the Home Page and type in James Agee.

This topic is about A Death in the Family
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Group Reads: Pre-1980 > A Death in the Family: March 2013 (edit)

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message 1: by Lawyer, Moderator Emeritus "Lawyer Stevens" - rated it 5 starsMar 01, 2013 05:51AM
Lawyer Stevens (goodreadscommm_sullivan) | 2628 comments
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This is an autobiographical novel by James Agee, whose father was killed in an automobile accident returning from checking on his father who had a heart attack. The novel was unfinished at the time of Agee's death and was completed by his editor. Agee was awarded the Pulitzer posthumously in 1958.

In 1961 it was adapted as a play All the Way Home by Tad Mosel. In 1963, David Susskind produced the film "All the Way Home." It was a combination of the novel and the play. It was filmed in the Knoxville, Tennessee, neighborhood in which Agee grew up.

In 2007, the novel was republished by University of Tennessee professor Michael Lofaro, who tracked down Agee's original Manuscripts. I am in search of the restored text.

Composer Samuel Barber wrote "Knoxville: Summer of 1915."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un7l-C...
Dawn Upshaw performs the piece here.


A Death in the Family was named one of Time Magazine's best 100 novels in the English Language written between 1923-2005. Thanks to member Chelsea for pointing out that 1923 marked the first appearance of Time Magazine.

I've thoroughly enjoyed following the discussion on A Death in the Family. And after striking the set following our final performance early Tuesday morning, I slept in. I settled into Agee's novel with a good cup of strong coffee and finished my third read this morning. Agee's novel only gains more power with each read. I heartily agree with Randall's perceptive comments regarding the novel.

The novel is autobiographical. Agee lost his father, a postal worker, in an automobile wreck at the age of six. His mother subsequently sent Agee to an Episcopal School in the Appalachians, Saint Andrews Seminary. Father Flye, a teacher there, would become his surrogate parent and mentor who first recognized Agee's inherent power in the use of language.

Agee was educated at Harvard. In 1936, under contract with Fortune Magazine, he accompanied Walker Evans to Tennessee and Alabama, documenting the lives of tenant farmers. Their work produced Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, an iconic work of the American Great Depression.

Agee produced volumes of literary criticism as a book reviewer for Time Magazine. He became known for his astute film reviews. Many examples of these works are contained in Film Writing and Selected Journalism: Agee on Film/uncollected film writing/The Night of the Hunter/journalism and film reviews, published by the Library of America.

Agee would also have his stint as a screenwriter in Hollywood. His best known work being "The African Queen," adapted from the novel by C.S. Forester, and "Night of the Hunter," adapted from the novel by Davis Grubb.

An alcoholic, and a chain smoker, Agee suffered his first heart attack in 1951. On May 16, 1955, enroute to a doctor's appointment, Agee suffered a second and fatal heart attack. He was 44.

A Death in the Familywas published by Mc Dowell, Obolensky, New York, in 1957, on behalf of the James Agee Trust. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1958.

Agee, gone far too soon.

Mike

Thanks for all the information Lawyer. I only discovered last night when I was halfway through that the novel is autobiographical. It was another kind of devastation altogether to realize that the little boy, Rufus, is James Agee at that age. When I've finished the novel, I'll go back and read the group's 2013 discussion. I wanted to know more about Agee, so I also watched a documentary on youtube about his life. That was before I had come back to read your comments, Lawyer, in which you've captured the most salient points. What an interesting man! Robert Fitzgerald, a poet and friend of Agee's comments that there was nothing moderate about James Agee. It seems that whatever he did, he was head over heels involved. Agee also developed a very demonstrative way of speaking, using his hands as tools to embellish his speech.

Libby wrote: "Thanks for all the information Lawyer. I only discovered last night when I was halfway through that the novel is autobiographical. It was another kind of devastation altogether to realize that the ..."

Libby, you're most welcome. A Death in the Family is among my favorites. "Knoxville: Summer of 1915" serves as the prologue to the novel. However, Agee had not included it in his draft. He wrote this wonderful prose poem in 1935. It was first published in The Partisan Review, Vol, 5, N.3 (1938). Agee referred to his poem as an exercise in improvisational writing which he wrote from start to finish in a mere ninety minutes.

"
Agee was describing the lost world of porches and the closely knit communities that shared them. The shady, street-front verandas that were once an amenity on every American house were killed off by air-conditioning. By the 1950s, builders stopped putting porches on new houses, and families retreated indoors to their televisions. Today grandparents who once sat in the rocking chairs on the porches of Knoxville are just as likely to be in an assisted living facility. And the people walking down the street are making eye contact not with their neighbors but with the smartphones in their hands.

All of these changes would appear to make Agee’s writing very dated today — the verandas are gone. Yet what endures is perhaps more important: the nagging sense of lost community that they represented. Agee put into words and art a vision of small-town America that we often scoff at as a cliché…yet we continue to return to it. That it can still move us is proof that, while porches may go out of style, the deeper things that bind us endure. We still have something to learn from those summer evenings in Knoxville."
"What We Can Learn From the Summer of 1915," BY PIA DE JONG AND LANDON JONES, Time, August 14, 2015

I think it's the same reason we love Wendell Berry books. We miss those old connections with people and life. Facebook and Twitter accounts just don't do it on a deep, personal level.

Lawyer, I looked up the article and read it in its entirety. Enjoyed it so much. Even if the book weren't so great (it is), the five-page prologue is a gem within itself.

Diane, I love how the prologue speaks to the connection we have with others. So true, Facebook and Twitter are like skimming the pond and just as full of debris.