James Agee and the Legend of Himself: A Critical Study

James Agee and the Legend of Himself: A Critical Study
ISBN-10
0826211828
ISBN-13
9780826211828
Category
Biography & Autobiography
Pages
294
Language
English
Published
1998
Publisher
University of Missouri Press
Author
Alan Spiegel

Description

James Agee's literary reputation has grown enormously since his death in 1955. He wrote novels, short stories, poetry, film criticism, screenplays, and investigative journalism, but these accomplishments earned him only a modest public reputation during his brief life. Ironically, Agee's greatest recognition as a writer came posthumously, when his novel A Death in the Family won the Pulitzer Prize. In James Agee and the Legend of Himself, Alan Spiegel examines these accomplishments and treats Agee not simply as a celebrity, journalist, or "Depression" writer but as a self-interrogating literary artist who created a homemade legend from his earliest family memories, sifting his experience through an automythology composed of his mother, his father, and himself.

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