A Death in the Family

Told with great lyrical beauty and power, James Agee's novel is an exquisitely tender account of the pain and bewilderment of loss. Driving back home to Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1915 after tending to a family emergency, Jay Follet is killed in a car accident. He leaves behind a wife and two small children, who must come to terms with his absence as the days after his death slowly unfold. A Death in the Family interweaves the thoughts of Jay's loved ones - from his wife, Mary, struggling to cope and take comfort from her religion, to his six-year-old son, Rufus, bewildered by the mysteries of the adult world and clinging to fragile childhood pleasures. WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE