Brittany+Extra+Credit


 * Synopsis:** __A Death in the Family__ is written in the point ot view of Rufus a seven year old boy. One night around three in the morning Jay (Rufus's Father) gets a call from his brother Ralph, and Their dad has had a heart attack. So Jay goes and drives out to see his father. While Jay is gone his wife Mary asks God to help Jay become a religious man, as religion is something she and her husband feel differently about.

The next day At ten o'clock in the evening Jay is supposed to return home, Mary receives a phone call from a man who tells her that Jay has been in an accident and died. The novel mainly shows how such a loss affects a mother, children, an atheistic father and Jays alcoholic brother. The Characters begin to change their point of views and they begin to change their way of life throughout the novel as they learn to deal with such a loss.


 * Author:** James Agee (1909 - 1955) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee. He went to Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, and then to Harvard. His first book was, //Let Us Now Praise Famous Men.// He was married three times, Agee had four children. He lived his adult life mostly in the New York City area. In 1955, he died of a heart attack while riding in a New York taxi. He wrote //A death in the Family// because his dad died when he was young, and the novel is about how his dad died and how his family dealt with it, but he used different character names to keep privacy. To learn more about Agee [|click here].
 * My Opinion:** I thought this book was good and interesting, I enjoyed it because it was about a real event that occured and how different people handle tragedies. There were some dry spots in the book, but all around I thought it was a great book to read and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading books that are not all about happiness.

I believe that this book made the outstanding book list because it shows how to cope with a death in the family and how families struggle for awhile after a tragedy like that. Another reason it is outstanding is because Agee wrote with a lot of emotion so it made you feel as if you dealing with the death along with the family in the book.


 * Other Information:** The genre of this book is a mix of tragedy and love. It is tragedy, obviously, because of the death, and it is love because it shows how the love with in a family can help make a depressing situation seem a little better.


 * Other Books I Suggest:**

Briar Rose By Jane Yoler

Like Water for Chocolate By Laura Esquivel


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A death in The Family Book Image. October 28 . James Agee Photo. October 28 http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2005/09/24/books/agee184.jpg. Briar Rose photo. November 1 . Like Water For Chocolate Photo. November 1 http://mrguerrero.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/lwfc-cover-small1.jpg.
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