A Death in the Family by James Agee.

The central story of this autobiographical novel is a young husband’s death in a car wreck and how his wife, children, and family react to the loss.  The novel delves into questions of faith and whether it assists in times of loss, the role of children in a bereaved family, judgment of the dead by the living . . . it probes painful questions throughout, and does it without cowardice or artifice.  I don’t know how I slipped through high school and college without reading this novel.  As usual, I love Agee’s use of language.  He demonstrates the importance of compression and immediacy so well.  To my mind, the most important aspect of the novel is Agee’s understanding of a child’s thought process.  Agee used the book to express his own reaction to his father’s death when he was a child.  Rufus is naive and confused and wonderful.

Agee died while he was writing the book, so the final stages of editing had to be left in another’s hands.  There’s been some controversy over which of Agee’s notes and drafts should have been included in the official version.  Parts of the novel definitely lose the quickness and style of Agee’s normal prose–that’s where the editor’s hand is most obvious.   Nevertheless, the book warranted a posthumous Pulitzer. 

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