The Books: “A Death in the Family” (James Agee)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

James Agee’s haunting evocative posthumously published novel A Death in the Family is next on the shelf.

I have a long history with this book. I remember when I was in high school seeing some program on PBS – a filming of a play production, at Lincoln Center, maybe? I can’t remember – but it was starring Sally Field and William Hurt – and I was young enough that this was my first encounter with these amazing actors. And to see them on stage? They were brilliant. It’s the story of a young boy whose father dies. Unexpectedly. It’s 1915 in Knoxville, Tennessee. Agee is a genius – if you’ve read the book you will know what I mean. The little boy can barely understand what has happened … but then again: the entire family can barely understand the tragedy that has befallen them. There is an ancient grandmother, lost to the world – there’s an ancient uncle, who has to have people shout into an enormous ear-horn in order for him to hear them. And suddenly – BOOM – their entire lives have changed. Agee, in such emotional detail, describes, moment to moment to moment … the reactions – some are logical, some are not … there’s a great section where the family sits up all night, waiting for news (they don’t know yet whether he is alive or not). Even though they are upstanding Christians of a certain era, someone has a bottle of whiskey – and it is thought that Mary could use some, to calm herself. There’s an incredible section (and I so remember this from the PBS production) where something random happens during this long night of waiting – and it strikes Mary funny (Agee, in the book, describes it perfectly – one of those tiny convergences of moments that end up being outrageously funny, even in the middle of a somber event – the devil is in charge of comedy, remember?) … and Mary starts to laugh, and once she starts to laugh – she cannot stop. She literally stalks around the room, slapping the walls, snorting, heaving, HOWLING – and you get the sense that this is so out of character – everyone is kind of afraid – is she losing it?

My second experience with this book is a production of this play that I did in Chicago – a play I will always look on fondly, for so many reasons. It’s the reason I met my now dear friend Kate. Kate played Mary, the soon-to-be widow. I played “Aunt Hannah” – the beloved aunt who sits up with Mary all night, waiting. It was the last show I did in Chicago before moving here. Theres a poignancy to Agee’s language that hurts … it’s like he dips into some collective memory pot – where all childhoods reside – and pulls it out, and turns it into poetry. It is nostalgic, but not sappy. It is full of the heart, but it is not sentimental.

James Agee had died suddenly in 1955 – he had been working on Death in the Family for a couple of years – and so the version of it that is published is exactly as it was found. This could probably be considered a pretty well-finished third draft. Nothing was re-written, or taken out. So there is a kind of non-linear structure to the book: we have the narrative, the story of the family waiting to hear whether or not Jay (the husband) is alive. And then – interjected – are poetic flights of memory – first-person narrative – you aren’t sure who is speaking but you’re pretty sure it is Agee himself – long passages describing summer, twilight, childhood, Tennessee – that very specific ambience of being a kid, in the country, during summer … these are separated from the actual narrative … but they add to the book immeasurably.

This excerpt is, to my mind, one of the most extraordinary sections of the book. Hannah – a pious good woman is trying to comfort Mary … and suddenly, out of nowhere, Hannah makes an internal realization. (The book is told from all different points of view – this chapter is Hannah’s.) I think the writing here can’t be beat. Check out how Agee just excavates emotions. Unbelievable. So specific. He makes me want to work harder.

But there’s something very scary here. Very personal, deep, and horrifying. Agee, a man of many demons, gets that – and not only does he get that, he can describe it.

Excerpt from A Death in the Family by James Agee

“Certainly be very soon now, he should phone,” Mary said. “Unless he’s had an accident!” she laughed sharply.

“Oh, soon, I’m sure,” Hannah said. Long before now, she said to herself, if it were anything but the worst. She squeezed Mary’s clasped hands, patted them, and withdrew her own hand, feeling, there’s no little comfort anyone can give, it’d better be saved for when it’s needed most.

Mary did not speak, and Hannah could not think of a word to say. It was absurd, she realized, but along with everything else, she felt almost a kind of social embarrassment under her speechlessness.

But after all, she thought, what is there to say? What earthly help am I, or anyone else?

She felt so heavy, all of a sudden, and so deeply tired, that she wished she might lean her forehead against the edge of the table.

“We’ve simply got to wait,” Mary said.

“Yes,” Hannah sighed.

I’d better drink some tea, she thought, and did so. Lukewarm and rather bitter, somehow it made her feel even more tired.

They sat without speaking for fully two minutes.

“At least we’re given the mercy of a little time,” Mary said slowly, “awful as it is to have to wait. To try to prepare ourselves for whatever it may be.” She was gazing studiously into her empty cup.

Hannah felt unable to say anything.

“Whatever is,” Mary went on, “it’s already over and done with.” She was speaking virtually without emotion; she was absorbed beyond feeling, Hannah became sure, it what she was beginning to find out and to face. Now she looked up at Hannah and they looked steadily into each other’s eyes.

“One of three things,” Mary said slowly. “Either he’s badly hurt but he’ll live, and at best even get thoroughly well, and at worst be a helpless cripple or an invalid or his mind impaired.” Hannah wished that she might look away, but she knew that she must not. “Or he is so terribly hurt that he will die of it, maybe quite soon, maybe after a long terrible struggle, maybe breathing his last at this very minute and wondering where I am, why I am not beside him.” She set her teeth for a moment and tightened her lips, and spoke again, evently: “Or he was gone already when the man called and he couldn’t bear to be the one to tell me, poor thing.

“One, or the other, or the other. And no matter what, there’s not one thing in this world or the next that we can do or hope or guess at or wish or pray that can change it or help it one iota. Because whatever is, is. That’s all. And all there is now is to be ready for it, strong enough for it, whatever it may be. That’s all. That’s all that matters. It’s all that matters because it’s all that’s possible. Isn’t that so?”

While she was speaking, she was with her voice, her eyes and with each word opening in Hannah those all but forgotten hours, almost thirty years past, during which the cross of living had first nakedly borne in upon her being, and she had made the first beginnings of learning how to endure and accept it. Your turn now, poor child, she thought; she felt as if a prodigious page were being silently turned, and the breath of its turning touched her heart with cold and tender awe. Her soul is beginning to come of age, she thought; and within those moments she herself became much older, much nearer her own death, and was content to be. Her heart lifted up in a kind of pride in Mary, in every sorrow she could remember, her own or that of others (and the remembrancs rushed upon her); in all existence and endurance. She wanted to cry out Yes! Exactly! Yes. Yes. Begin to see. Your turn now. She wanted to hold her niece at arms’ length and to turn and admire this blossoming. She wanted to take her in her arms and groan unto God for what it meant to be alive. But chiefly she wanted to keep stillness and to hear the young woman’s voice and to watch her eyes and her round forehead while she spoke, and to accept and experience this repetition of her younger experience, which bore her high and pierced like music.

“Isn’t that so?” Mary repeated.

“That and much more,” she said.

“You mean God’s mercy?” Mary asked softly.

“Nothing of the kind,” Hannah replied sharply. “What I mean, I’d best not try to say.” (I’ve begun, though, she reflected; and I startled her, I hurt her, almost as if I’d spoken against God.) “Only because it’s better if you learn it for yourself. By yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whatever we hear, learn, Mary, it’s almost certain to be hard. Tragically hard. You’re beginning to know that and to face it: very bravely. What I mean is that this is only the beginning. You’ll learn much more. Beginning very soon now.”

“Whatever it is, I want so much to be worthy of it,” Mary said, her eyes shining.

“Don’t try too hard to be worthy of it, Mary. Don’t think of it that way. Just do your best to endure it and let any question of worthiness take care of itself. That’s more than enough.”

“I feel so utterly unprepared. So little time to prepare in.”

“I don’t think it’s a kind of thing that can be prepared for; it just has to be lived through.”

There was a kind of ambition there, Hannah felt, a kind of pride or poetry, which was very mistaken and very dangerous. But she was not yet quite sure what she meant; and of all the times to become beguiled by such a matter, to try to argue it, or warm about it! She’s so young, she told herself. She’ll learn, poor soul, she’ll learn.

Even while Hannah watched her, Mary’s face became diffuse and humble. Oh, not yet, Hannah whispered desperately to herself. Not yet. But Mary said, shyly, “Aunt Hannah, can we kneel down for a minute?”

Not yet, she wanted to say. For the first time in her life she suspected how mistakenly prayer can be used, but she was unsure why. What can I say, she thought, almost in panic. How can I judge? She was waiting too long; Mary smiled at her, timidly, and in a beginning of bewilderment; and in compassion and self-doubt Hannah came around the table and they knelt side by side. We can be seen, Hannah realized; for the shades were up. Let us, she told herself angrily.

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen,” Mary said in a low voice.

“Amen,” Hannah trailed.

They were silent and they could hear the ticking of the clock, the shuffling of fire, and the yammering of the big kettle.

God is not here, Hannah said to herself; and made a small cross upon her breastbone, against her blasphemy.

“O God,” Mary whispered, “strengthen me to accept Thy will, whatever it may be.” Then she stayed silent.

God hear her, Hannah said to herself. God forgive me. God forgive me.

What can I know of the proper time for her, she said to herself. God forgive me.

Yet she could not rid herself: something mistaken, unbearably piteous, infinitely malign was at large within that faithfulness; she was helpless to forfend it or even to know its nature.

Suddenly there opened within her a chasm of infinite depth and from it flowed the paralyzing breath of eternal darkness.

I believe nothing. Nothing whatsoever.

“Our Father,” she heard herself say, in a strange voice; and Mary, innocent of her terror, joined in the prayer. And as they continued, and Hannah heard more and more clearly than her own the young, warm, earnest, faithful, heartsick voice, her moment of terrifying unbelief became a remembrance, a temptation successfully resisted through God’s grace

Deliver us from evil, she repeated silently, several times after their prayer was finished. But the malign was still there, as well as the mercifulness.

They got to their feet.