All Aunt Hagar's Children

All Aunt Hagar's Children

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. Pulitzer Prize?winning author Edward P. Jones ( The Known World , **** Nov/Dec 2003) once again unfurls his extraordinary literary talent on the world. Though a few reviewers admit he makes "occasional missteps" ( New York Times), the overall effect of these poignant, demanding, and nonlinear stories is respectful awe. These are short stories, yes, but all of the tales employ novelistic time shifts and multiple subplots. The characters are utterly human and given to temptation, but Jones treats them all with admirable tenderness. At the same time he persuasively honors their biblical antecedent Hagar, the woman cast out by Abraham, the mother of a new nation (perhaps Africa), and the Bible's first slave. Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc. In 14 short stories, Jones, author of the acclaimed novel The Known World (2003), demonstrates his skill at drawing complex and nuanced characters and predicaments. Washington, D.C., is the setting for this collection of stories in assorted time frames with assorted characters, most of whom come from the rural South, and all of whom are coping with the transformation of their lives and their adjustments to a new way of life. A young husband and wife, Aubrey and Ruth, are confounded by the faster pace of a city where babies are abandoned and love cools. A young man, anticipating his last days in D.C. as he dreams of a new life in Alaska (a novel place for a black man), is captivated by a murder investigation he reluctantly agrees to do for a family friend and the last words of an old white woman. He cradled the woman in his arms after she was struck by a streetcar and heard her dying words, spoken in Yiddish, words that haunt him--and threaten his future plans--although he doesn't understand them. Arlene is cursed by her uncanny survival of a lifelong series of tragedies that has taken those around her since childhood. Her sadness and loneliness are briefly broken as she meets kindred spirits in a young girl and a Guatemalan woman. Jones' stories are rich in detail and emotions as he plumbs the intricacies of people's relationships with one another and with spiritual forces at work in urban as well as natural environments. Readers who enjoyed The Known World will relish these varied gems of Jones' talent for storytelling. Vanessa Bush Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved “Stunning. . .Jones forges powerful stories of lost causes and bone-deep endurance. So powerful and so beautiful.” - O: the Oprah magazine “Jones’s . . .views demand our compassion: he is always asking us to see and therefore feel, more. . . .[His] imagination fills these long stories with people and incident and moments of great tenderness, not to say humor amidst the melancholy.” - Harper's “Edward P. Jones belongs in the first rank of American letters. . . . Jones has established himself as one of the most important writers of his own generation. The stories of All Aunt Hagar’s Children, like all his previous work, radiate decency, humanity and an abiding faith in human possibility.” - Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post Book World “Powerful...Like William Trevor and Alice Munro, Jones compresses whole novels into these stories.” - Boston Globe “Individually, [the stories] show off the art of a writer with unusual talent. . .among these are. . .the best short fiction of the decade.” - Chicago Tribune “Manages to stun on every page; there are too many breathtaking lines to count.” - Dave Eggers–New York Times Book Review “P