Thank you, Louella! Yes, it's such a great quote. It's one of two epigraphs for my forthcoming essay collection, How to Change History. This essay is in that collection, too. Glad you enjoyed it and related to it as well.
Most engaging! Need to read more Agee now that I am aged. And more Southern Literature, including your own. I took my first Creative Writing class here in Charlotte, with adorable Miss Kimball in the 7th grade, circa '67, and have written since, through rarely considering myself a Southern writer. I suspect many might hold a similarly narrow view as your teacher, but I also feel it may be time to blow that notion to bits. Now more than ever, the South is a tapestry of allsorts. And the Internet has shrunk the world. Skinny-dip today, and all the world will have seen the video by morning.
Great essay. I'm glad to see that it's part of your upcoming collection. I didn't read Agee until I was in my 40s; we were assigned LUNPFM for a documentary writing class. I had the same mix of feelings you describe. It's high time I read A Death in the Family. Do you have an opinion on the 1957 version v. the Lofaro version? I would have thought the latter, but Steve Earle's introduction to a Penguin Classics edition of the 1957 version makes it sound pretty compelling.
This is beautiful! I too have always been haunted by Agee...and that very same lake.
Really? That's so cool! Did you do morning watch too? Thank you!
Excellent essay, Robin. Agee’s “fragments of cloth” quote is one I’ve cited. Being from Virginia, I could relate to your southern education.
Thank you, Louella! Yes, it's such a great quote. It's one of two epigraphs for my forthcoming essay collection, How to Change History. This essay is in that collection, too. Glad you enjoyed it and related to it as well.
Most engaging! Need to read more Agee now that I am aged. And more Southern Literature, including your own. I took my first Creative Writing class here in Charlotte, with adorable Miss Kimball in the 7th grade, circa '67, and have written since, through rarely considering myself a Southern writer. I suspect many might hold a similarly narrow view as your teacher, but I also feel it may be time to blow that notion to bits. Now more than ever, the South is a tapestry of allsorts. And the Internet has shrunk the world. Skinny-dip today, and all the world will have seen the video by morning.
Great essay. I'm glad to see that it's part of your upcoming collection. I didn't read Agee until I was in my 40s; we were assigned LUNPFM for a documentary writing class. I had the same mix of feelings you describe. It's high time I read A Death in the Family. Do you have an opinion on the 1957 version v. the Lofaro version? I would have thought the latter, but Steve Earle's introduction to a Penguin Classics edition of the 1957 version makes it sound pretty compelling.