A Death in the Family is a classic American novel, re-published for the 100th anniversary of James Agee's birth. Published in 1957, two years after its author's death at the age of forty-five, this novel remains a near-perfect work of art. It is an autobiographical novel that contains one of the most evocative depictions of loss and grief ever written.

As Jay Follet hurries back to his home in Knoxville, Tennessee, he is killed in a car accident—a tragedy that destroys not only a life but also the domestic happiness and contentment of a young family. This is a novel of great courage, lyric force, and powerful emotion, truly a masterpiece of American literature.