Let us now praise famous men A death in the family, & shorter fiction

A half century after Agee's untimely demise in 1955 (at age 49), his work takes its place among the Library of America authoritative editions of "America's best and most significant writing." A lesser publisher might have been daunted by the prospect of doing justice to Agee's complex achievements, given the heterogeneity of his oeuvre. Michael Sragow, film critic for the Baltimore Sun, put together this collection, and he has filled 1,600 pages with some impressive choices. The two showpieces of Agee's career, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (1941) and the posthumously published A Death in the Family (1957), anchor the first volume, which also includes a novella, The Morning Watch, and three short stories. Sragow includes the text and photo selection from the 1960 second edition of Let Us Now, and the 1957 original Death has been emended in accord with scholarly research and Sragow's independent study of textual variants. The second volume saves for posterity an abundance of ephemera that Agee elevated to serious art. Sragow supplements Agee's myriad film reviews and essays for Time and The Nation (written in the 1940s) with a miscellany of delightful articles on current events and popular culture; it takes a 20-page index just to list the amazing range of topics. Agee's script-writing endeavors are represented by the screenplay for The Night of the Hunter (1955). In short, these volumes resurrect the best works in several previous Agee compilations (of film reviews, journalism, short prose, and literary documents) to reveal the mind and sensibilities of this versatile and incisive author. Only poetry is excluded; perhaps a third volume will bring that back into print. But even without the poetry, these volumes are a glorious treasure. ^BSumming Up: Essential. All readers; all levels. A. J. Griffith emeritus, Our Lady of the Lake University

In his all-too-brief life, Agee (1909-55) produced acclaimed writings in fiction, journalism, and criticism; these two volumes, edited by Baltimore Sun film critic Sragow, offer a thorough representation of his literary output. Volume 1 opens with Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a portrayal of Alabama sharecroppers through Agee's poignant words and Walker Evans's haunting photographs. Next is a selection of Agee's fiction, most notably A Death in the Family, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel based on the author's Tennessee childhood, here newly corrected from original manuscripts. Volume 2 is a sumptuous gathering of film reviews originally published in the Nation and Time as well as some that have not appeared in previous collections. The range of these pieces is impressive, covering movies as varied as Lifeboat, The Song of Bernadette, and The Enchanted Cottage and focusing on every film personality imaginable; all of them bear the imprint of Agee's distinctive analytical and literary style. Additional works include the renowned essay on silent film comedy that appeared in Life, as well as literary reviews, reportage on subjects from orchids to cockfighting, and a screenplay for Charles Laughton's The Night of the Hunter. The accompanying notes and chronology are quite helpful, and more such enhancements would have been welcome. Academic libraries and large circulating collections would be wise to invest in these quality volumes.-Carol J. Binkowski, Bloomfield, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.