A Death in the Family by James Agee (#21, Classic)

I found A Death in the Family on a list of Pulitzer winners and thought, hey, it won an award, I'll give it a whirl. I didn't love it. It irked me for two reasons, first there was talk of religion, and we all know how much I love religion, and secondly the little boy bothered me. The kid gets picked on to the nth degree and just doesn't get it. It was painful to read as he kept walking right into the traps set by older boys to make him look like a big idiot. He knew they were making fun of him, yet he longed so much to be liked that he continually tried to talk himself into believing they were actually his allies. But the whole time he seems to know they really aren't his friends, but he is okay with that because he enjoys the attention in some distorted way. And then, the icing on the cake, after his dad dies, he uses his knowledge of what happened as coolness leverage. Bragging about your dad's death, not cool. Okay, so he was only 7 years old or something, but still, it IRKED me!

I think the novel captured how a family may react to the death of a loved one. The book as a whole didn't make me think or stand out to me, but there was one passage, or scene, that I don't think I will ever forget. There was nothing extra special about what happened, just the exchange between a husband and wife as he is going on a short trip, but it paints a vivid picture in your head of what I believe to be true love. You feel the love between the two of them. Cheese, I know, but it was nice. And it didn't make me want to vomit in my mouth, so I think it had to have been cleverly written, otherwise I probably just would have made a gagging noise and breezed past. :) Ah, forever the cynic.