A death in the family Book

An oldie (1938) but a goodie. This book is a poster child for truth in advertising: it is precisely what its title tells us. A young husband and father is taken in the prime of life. As the family gathers in the house before the funeral, we hear every comforting word, every sob. We hear the prayers with the priest; we pick up the scent of flowers; we hear the empty condolences. A grief-stricken toddler daughter is hiding under the bed. They start loading the hearse.



In between these scenes we learn of the family squabbles: a Catholic woman in Tennessee who struggled to gain the acceptance of her husband's non-Catholic family. We get glimpses of that family: the deaf mother-in-law; the alcoholic younger brother; the spinster aunt.

It's also a discussion of God interpreted by the young boy who has lost his father. He tries to interpret things through the contradictory and confusing things he hears from adults. - is He out there or not? Most of the story is told through the eyes of this young boy.

The work is set in 1915, so we have hand-crank cars and horses. I read this book because the blurb said people talk about this book years after they have read it. I think that's a fair statement and good testimony for this book.

Although Agee's most famous work is probably Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, he won the 1958 Pulitzer (posthumously) for A Death. Agee led a typical Great Author life: he was a chain-smoking alcoholic who died at age 45 from a heart attack in a taxi on his way to a doctor's appointment. He had multiple children with multiple spouses.

Photo of Agee, aged 28, from Wikipedia
(Revised 3/4/2017)