A Death in the Family
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Narrated by:
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Lloyd James
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By:
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James Agee
About this listen
Audie Award Nominee, Classic, 2013
Decades after its original publication, James Agee’s last novel seems, more than ever, an American classic. For in his lyrical, sorrowful account of a man’s death and its impact on his family, Agee painstakingly created a small world of domestic happiness and then showed how quickly and casually it could be destroyed.
On a sultry summer night in 1915, Jay Follet leaves his house in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tend to his father, whom he believes is dying. The summons turns out to be a false alarm, but on his way back to his family, Jay has a car accident and is killed instantly. Dancing back and forth in time and braiding the viewpoints of Jay’s wife, brother, and young son, Rufus, Agee creates an overwhelmingly powerful novel of innocence, tenderness, and loss that should be read aloud for the sheer music of its prose.
©1938 1956, 1957 by the James Agee Trust. 1957 by the New Yorker Magazine, Inc. 1985 by Mia Agee (P)2011 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Gervase Howard is in her mid-teens when her working-class mother dies and she must go to live with relatives in service to a wealthy, noble family, outside of London. While learning various jobs, she is drawn to the eldest son, Davis. Her fascination with him grows deeper, but more hopeless, since the two are separated not just by class, but also by Davis's love for Roberta. When Davis announces his engagement, he asks Gervase to join them as Roberta's maid. But instead Gervase becomes a companion to Florence Nightingale and accompanies her when the Crimean War breaks out....
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Always enjoy Gilbert Morris-Great historical fict.
- By Linda - Yakima on 01-17-13
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The Invisible Wall
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This enchanting true story, written when the author was 93, is a moving tale of working-class life, the social divide, and forbidden love on the eve of the first World War. The narrow street on which Harry grew up appeared identical to countless other working-class English neighborhoods, except for the invisible wall that ran down the center of the street, dividing the Jewish families on one side from the Christians on the other.
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A Powerful Tale
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The Charioteer
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A Gay Classic!
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My Soul to Keep
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When Jessica marries David, he is everything she wants in a family man: brilliant, attentive, ever youthful. Yet she still feels something about him is just out of reach. Soon, as people close to Jessica begin to meet violent, mysterious deaths, David makes an unimaginable confession: More than 400 years ago, he and other members of an Ethiopian sect traded their humanity so they would never die, a secret he must protect at any cost.
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A Book I Can't Keep
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The Homeplace
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As the year 1928 begins, 14-year-old Lanie Belle Freeman of Fairhope, Arkansas, has bright hopes for the future. Her father has launched a new business, and her mother is expecting her fifth baby. Lanie has dreams of going to college and being a writer. Then tragedy strikes.
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Slow to start. But hang in there. It’s worth it
- By paula wright on 02-24-19
By: Gilbert Morris
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Alice Adams
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Plucky and romantic Alice tries to rise above the crudities of her hopelessly shabby background in this Pulitzer Prize-winning classic about ambition and self-delusion. The lower-middle class Adams family faces a slow disintegration in a small Midwestern town. Alice, a social climber, is ashamed of her unsuccessful family and determined to distinguish herself.
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The wrong reader in the wrong style
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Mary Coles and her husband, Graham, have just moved to a cottage on the edge of a small village. The house hasn't been lived in for years, but they are drawn to its original features and surprisingly large garden, which stretches down into a beautiful apple orchard. It's idyllic, remote, picturesque: exactly what they need to put the horror of the past behind them.
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Not What I expected.
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By: Julie Myerson
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What listeners say about A Death in the Family
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Patricia
- 07-10-13
A rural family struggles with death
Written back in the first half of the 20th century, this slow moving but powerful story tells of a rural family facing a death of one of its members. It starts out very slowly but soon it completely hooked me and I found it hard to put down. Not a whole lot happens but it is nevertheless completely absorbing and true to life. I highly recommend it.
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1 person found this helpful
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- W Perry Hall
- 06-22-14
Is it really worth the costs of reading/listening?
In the 2d half of my 40s, I've been on a kick to read as many prized literary novels as I can. I've been particularly interested in reading such novels set in the South. This novel, set in Tennessee, won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. It has caused me to question whether I should do a cost-benefit analysis before reading certain prized novels.
In my literary endeavor, many times I've enjoyed what I've read and some novels have required hard work and a second reading to appreciate (e.g., The Sound and the Fury). And, then there have been a couple like A DEATH IN THE FAMILY, that made me wonder why I should force myself to experience a story of an event and aftermath so painful to endure in reality, a story that nearly all of us suffer through at least a few times in our life if we are lucky enough to make it to middle age. This novel, as you can tell from the title, is a story of a rural family dealing with the death of the father and husband and brother and son to the respective surviving family members.
I have had a hard enough time surviving the painful ordeal of the death of an immediate family member. While I can appreciate the literary quality of this novel, I've come to the conclusion that life is just too short and my reading time too limited to spend hours and hours of my time vicariously living through such intimate agony and sadness at and as the story's very center.
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7 people found this helpful
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- sospira
- 09-02-21
Stunning in truth and words
Agee possessed an astonishing ability to evoke so much. The semi autobiographical story is heart rending and poignant. The ability to capture people in different life stages and understanding is a gift.
Further, I applaud Lloyd James for his incredible narration. Without making caricatures of the voices, he captures each character’s voice. I’ve rarely heard a male narrator so effectively convey the voices of children and women. As a southerner, I can say that his Southern accent was not overdone, false, or cloying. Bravo to Mr. James!
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- Valerie
- 06-27-15
Outstanding!
I had never heard of this author or this book- so glad I stumbled upon it! Moving, thoughtful- a great story told by a fantastic narrator
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5 people found this helpful
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- Michael F. Mcneeley
- 03-31-17
Outstanding audiobook.
Excellent story, excellent performance. Narrator nailed the East Tennessean accent without condescension. Very highly recommended.
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- Trevor Harding
- 03-03-24
Beautiful imagery
My favorite book. How Agee describes the inter family relationships, the boy’s experience, the differences in beliefs, I’ve never related to a story more.
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- Kelly
- 07-29-20
spare, simple, best analysis of grief I've read
I am continuing my personal goal of reading all of the Pulitzer winners, and this gem makes me so glad that I started. This book is brutally, devastatingly sad. But is is also the best exploration of death that I have ever read. (And, this may be one of my favorite themes in literature as it exposes so much about humanity and the emotions we all feel at some time in our lives.)
There is no spoiler here as the title of A Death in the Family tells us exactly what we are going to experience. However it was a surprise that we were a third of the way into the book before that death happened. And I am so glad that was the case, because that allowed me to care about and connect with all of those who would be left behind to mourn the loss.
The entire narrative occurs over a few days, which allowed Agee to delve deeply into all the little moments. When the spouse is considering the "what ifs" before she knows the outcome of the accident, she moves from denial, to hope, to fear, to acceptance. (1. Perhaps he has the wrong person. 2. Well, if it is my husband he may need to be in bed for a while so I will make up the room downstairs. 3. I hope it isn't so bad that he is mentally deficient in the future. 4. He must be gone or I would know by now, wouldn''t I?) It is brilliant, true, and so very real. It is exactly the way we all experience an unexpected loss.
This is a spare, simple, quiet book without a traditional plot. This one is all about character and emotion. The events are mundane and uncomplicated. The describtions are about the tiniest details. But the emotional impact is profound.
The children in the story are written with authenticity. Rufus believes that he must be the caretaker of his sister. And while the other children at school are cruel towards him he takes a sliver of pleasure from his new prestige and status. He is getting attention that he never had before. And Catherine is unable to comprehend that her father is not going to come home. They argue with one another in the ways that two siblings trapped at home do. Their confusion, sadness and irritation is palpable. But they are never portrayed as too mature or too immature. Agee created children that act like children.
I will recommend this one often, but perhaps only to those who have put some space between them and the events that caused them similar pain.
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6 people found this helpful
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- Sara Guggenheim
- 07-11-18
Description
Listening to the delicate way Agee describes the deepest feeling and emotions of human kind through simple and preside descriptions for different points of view is eye opening.
I throughly enjoyed it
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4 people found this helpful
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- Dillon
- 07-24-17
Wonderfully read!
Incredible story. Wonderfully read. James Agee is amazing. Get it, listen, enjoy!!!! Thank you Audible.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Gail
- 06-19-21
Hauntingly Beautiful
Agee’s descriptions of events and how they affect the characters are almost poetry. His ability to elicit such clear memories and feelings from my childhood and from my actual experiences with death amazed me.
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