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Tennessee author James Rufus Agee (1909
- 1955) was born in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Hugh James Agee and his wife Laura
Tyler Agee. Respecting his mother and loving his father, the young James Agee
was devastated by his father's death in 1916 in an auto accident. Two years
later, his mother moved him and herself to Sewanee to be near the Episcopal
monastery located there and to enroll her son in St. Andrew's School, run by
the monks. [The school continues to this day, now under secular administration.]
From there he went to Phillips Exeter Academy, in New Hampshire, and then to
Harvard.
It was a parody written for the Harvard Advocate that landed him a job as a
writer with Fortune Magazine. Agee also wrote for The Nation and
for Time, where he reviewed books and movies. His work as a reviewer
led him to writing scripts for television and movies. His best known film scripts
were for The African Queen and The Night of the Hunter.
His first book, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, written in collaboration
with celebrated photographer Walker Evans, grew out of an article they produced
for Fortune. Documenting the lives of poor Southern sharecroppers, it
is still regarded as a classic work. His Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, A
Death in the Family, was published posthumously. Agee had been working on
this highly autobiographical story, set in Knoxville (mainly the Fort Sanders
neighborhood and downtown), for nearly two decades. His friend David McDowell
edited the manuscript, and published it in 1957. A fictional account of his
father's early death, this novel was undoubtedly Agee's way of seeking healing
from the loss that haunted him.
Married three times, James 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.
Return to James Agee: A Celebration of his Work
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