All Aunt Hagar's Children - Hardcover

Jones, Edward P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060557567 ISBN 13: 9780060557560

Publisher: Amistad Press, 2006

Synopsis

In fourteen sweeping and sublime stories, five of which have been published in The New Yorker, the bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Known World shows that his grasp of the human condition is firmer than ever

Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book, Lost in the City, Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city's power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens. All Aunt Hagar's Children turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them further north, people who in Jones's masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them.

In the title story, in which Jones employs the first-person rhythms of a classic detective story, a Korean War veteran investigates the death of a family friend whose sorry destiny seems inextricable from his mother's own violent Southern childhood. In "In the Blink of God's Eye" and "Tapestry" newly married couples leave behind the familiarity of rural life to pursue lives of urban promise only to be challenged and disappointed.

With the legacy of slavery just a stone's throw away and the future uncertain, Jones's cornucopia of characters will haunt readers for years to come.

About this title

About the Author

Edward P. Jones, the New York Times bestselling author, has been awarded the Pulitzer Prize, for fiction, the National Book Critics Circle award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Lannan Literary Award for The Known World; he also received a MacArthur Fellowship in 2004. His first collection of stories, Lost in the City, won the PEN/Hemingway Award and was short listed for the National Book Award. His second collection, All Aunt Hagar’s Children, was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner Award. He has been an instructor of fiction writing at a range of universities, including Princeton. He lives in Washington, D.C.

From AudioFile

Peter Francis James's melodious baritone is beautifully suited to this fine collection of short stories by Edward P. Jones, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his earlier novel, THE KNOWN WORLD. The stories are predominantly about Southerners moving North to Washington, D.C., in the early and mid-twentieth century; although set relatively recently, they are replete with passages that seem as if they should begin "once upon a time." Accordingly, James speaks with a warmth and rhythm that invite listeners to settle back and listen. His pacing, particularly his use of telling pauses, is adept. And he shades characters with just enough personality to color the already-vivid scenes. A.C.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

About this edition

• Publisher: Amistad Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0060557567
• ISBN 13: 9780060557560
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 399