James Agee (1909–1955)
Author of A Death in the Family
About the Author
Born in Knoxville, Tennessee, on November 27, 1909 and educated at Harvard, James Agee crowded versatile literary activity into his short and troubled life. In addition to two novels, he wrote short stories, essays, poetry, and screenplays; he worked professionally as a journalist and film critic. show more Appropriately, he is best remembered for a work that combines several genres and literary approaches. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a documentary report on sharecropper life accompanied by vividly realistic photographs by Walker Evans, has been called "a great Moby Dick of a book" (New York Times Book Review). It may be considered an important precursor of the so-called nonfiction novel that was to gain prominence during the 1960s. The Morning Watch (1954), a novel in the tradition of portraits of artists-to-be, and A Death in the Family, a moving account of domestic life based on the loss of Agee's father belong to more conventional types of fiction. The 1960 dramatization of All the Way Home by Tad Mosel, won a Pulitizer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award; it was also cited by Life as the "Best American Play of the Season." Agee's work for the screen included his scripts for The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter. Agee on Film (1958-60) consists of a gathering of reviews and comments as well as five scripts. Prior to Laurence Bergreen's well-received 1984 biography of Agee, the principal source of information about his life was Letters of James Agee to Father Flye, a collection of seventy letters written by Agee to his instructor at St. Andrew's School and trusted friend throughout his life. The letters show Agee most often in a reflective, self-condemning mood. The final letters, written from the hospital where he was battling daily heart attacks, are touching, as are his sad reflections on the work he yet wanted to do. Agee died in New York of a heart attack on May 16, 1955. He was posthumously awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1957 for A Death in the Family. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Image credit: www.ageefilms.org
Works by James Agee
James Agee Rediscovered: The Journals for 'Let Us Now Praise Famous Men' and Other New Manuscripts (2005) 2 copies
James Agee: Let Us Now Praise Famous Men / a Death in the Family / Shorter Fiction (Loa #159) 1 copy
Death in the family, A 1 copy
The Collected Short Prose of James Agee. Edited and with a Memoir by Robert Fitzgerald (1968) 1 copy
Film: An Anthology 1 copy
Associated Works
American Poetry: The Twentieth Century, Volume Two: E. E. Cummings to May Swenson (2000) — Contributor — 410 copies
You've Got to Read This: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe (1994) — Contributor — 380 copies
The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now (2008) — Contributor — 156 copies
The Roads from Bethlehem: Christmas Literature from Writers Ancient and Modern (1993) — Contributor — 29 copies
Firsts: 100 Years of Yale Younger Poets (Yale Series of Younger Poets) (2019) — Contributor — 12 copies
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Agee, James
- Legal name
- Agee, James Rufus
- Birthdate
- 1909-11-27
- Date of death
- 1955-05-16
- Burial location
- Agee Family Farm, Hillsdale, New York, USA
- Gender
- male
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
- Place of death
- New York, New York, USA
- Cause of death
- heart attack
- Places of residence
- Knoxville, Tennessee, USA
Santa Barbara, California, USA - Education
- Harvard University (BA|1932)
- Occupations
- screenwriter
journalist
film critic
novelist
poet - Relationships
- Levitt, Helen (friend)
- Organizations
- The Nation
Fortune
Time - Awards and honors
- American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award (Literature ∙ 1949)
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1958)
Members
Reviews
A Death in the Family (Penguin Classics) by James Agee
A Death in the Family, published posthumously in 1957, is amongst the most beautiful books I've ever read (listened to - this was the audiobook). Agee's language use and the flow of his prose are things of wonder. In a book that takes place almost entirely within a few days, Agee patiently describes the acts and feelings of a family that has just lost a 36-year old husband and father, a good man, who drove too quickly, and who ended up in a ditch, killed instantly. I don't like writing book reviews, but I do want to commend this book and to recommend it in the highest possible terms.… (more)
If you want a basic history of the california movie business from the silents to the advent of Cinemascope, here it is.
This was one of those books that was never on any of my reading lists but seemed like one of those American classics that I should have read. It's such a very sad story, it's hard to recommend....but the descriptive writing is unlike anything I've ever read. This story could be great for a book club discussion.
Reason read; Pulitzer 1958, TIOLI read a book with death in the title
I had this on my list to read at least twice before and I finally got it read. I did not know anything about the book and discovered that this is an autobiographical novel. The author's dad died in a car accident. In this story the death is reflected by the wife, by the brother of the deceased , by Rufus the son and his sister. It explores religion. The wife is Catholic, the father is an atheist. The author died before publishing the story. The story is set in Tennessee.
The setting is in the early 1900s. The automobile is new, many still get around by horse and wagon. It was rewritten by David McDowell who took liberties. Michael Lofaro maintains that the novel as published 1957 was not the version intended for print by the author. Lofaro discussed his work at a conference that was part of the Knoxville James Agee Celebration (April 2005). Having tracked down the author's original manuscripts and notes, Lofaro reconstructed a version he considers more authentic. This version, entitled A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author's Text, was published in 2007. I think I read the one by McDowell. And that would be the one that actually won the Pulitzer.… (more)
I had this on my list to read at least twice before and I finally got it read. I did not know anything about the book and discovered that this is an autobiographical novel. The author's dad died in a car accident. In this story the death is reflected by the wife, by the brother of the deceased , by Rufus the son and his sister. It explores religion. The wife is Catholic, the father is an atheist. The author died before publishing the story. The story is set in Tennessee.
The setting is in the early 1900s. The automobile is new, many still get around by horse and wagon. It was rewritten by David McDowell who took liberties. Michael Lofaro maintains that the novel as published 1957 was not the version intended for print by the author. Lofaro discussed his work at a conference that was part of the Knoxville James Agee Celebration (April 2005). Having tracked down the author's original manuscripts and notes, Lofaro reconstructed a version he considers more authentic. This version, entitled A Death in the Family: A Restoration of the Author's Text, was published in 2007. I think I read the one by McDowell. And that would be the one that actually won the Pulitzer.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 36
- Also by
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- Rating
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