My goal this month was to read books by authors that start with the letter "A." I haven't done that well - but this one also satisfied my desire to read more winners of the Pulitzer Prize. A Death in the Family was published after Agee's death - when it was not quite in final form. Sections of the manuscript didn't seem to make sense, and so portions are published in italics - indicating where folks believed Agee would have placed the material in a final draft. Apparently, Agee was also a notorious re-writer, so it's possible half of this would have ended up on the cutting room floor. Whatever the case, it is an interesting well-written book, but quite slow - it reminded me quite a bit of A Summons to Memphis. The basic premise is that a man is called home to visit his dying father. Only, it turns out his father is fine, and on the drive back home to see his family, the man is in a fatal car accident. The remainder of the book focuses on his widow, their two children, and the widow's family who try to help her cope with her loss. There is significant dialogue in the novel, but also something about the descriptions made me think that this would be better presented as a play. After thinking this, I looked Agee up on www.wikipedia.org and leared that he was in fact a screenwriter. He suffered from alcoholism, and died at the age of 45 following two heart attacks.(* - Winner of the 1958 Pulitzer Prize - awarded post-humously)
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