All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories
4/5
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About this ebook
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.
Edward P. Jones
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.
Read more from Edward P. Jones
The Known World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost in the City: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hue and Cry: Stories Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5D.C. Noir 2: The Classics Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
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Reviews for All Aunt Hagar's Children
110 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I generally much prefer novels to short stories but I enjoyed this collection. Set in Washington DC, it examines the lives of African Americans who are transplants from another time and place. All grew up in rural, southern communities and most still have family there. What I found interesting was the way the culture and social mores of the country adapted to the lives of those living in the city.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I purchased this book at a United Way Bookfair [Feb '07 Black History Month]. I had not read any of Edward P. Jones work and decided that this book had to be a great read because the author was a Pulitzer Prize Winner. Subsequently, I was not all disappointed. This collection of short stories is very real and heart touching. I think it gives readers an inside look at working class black folks with hopes, dreams, and struggles...just like any other American. My favorite story was "Bad Neighbors". We all can relate to neighbors who are deemed no class or others who simply think they're too good for the community, but cannot afford to move elsewhere. Classic stereotypes are addressed and real feelings of the characters, emerge from the pages. It's a book I'd read again and again. I also purchased the known world after reading this.