Really, most of the time I felt the book could have been written by Mapquest. The first couple of stores held my attention but then they began to sound as it the short stories could have been just one long story. I'm black! I found the prose of this collection to be denser and infused with more symbolism (some biblical, as the title suggests) and at times, magical elements, in comparison to Lost in the City. It definitely did not feel like you were reading the same story over and over as some short story compilations do. I would definitely recommend it as much as Lost in the City, but I think it would be smart to read this one after you've been introduced. As a writer, the things I enjoy most about reading Edward P. Jones are his specificity and the way he uses time and history. Talking to other folks who've read it, some agree with me in principle, but have opposite opinions on which stories are good and which are just ok. Frustrating. Not all readers will share my short story preferences - I like them to be streamlined and to end with a bang - but that didn't really fit with these stories, which tend to meander along with two or three subplots that often don't reach any resolution or have much to do with the main plot. The first three stories of All Aunt Hagar’s Children didn’t leave strong impressions, though I liked Jones’ writing and there were nuggets in each of those stories that shone. In Old Boys, Old Girls, the hardened ex-con finds it impossible to accept the help of his family, but seeks a seedier, solitary life on the fringes. She was the slave of Sarah who was married to Abraham, and Sarah thought she was too old to have children so she sent Hagar to Abraham, and they had a child named Ishmael. Refresh and try again. I don't read too many collections of short stories, but Edward Jones, winner of the Pulitzer for his novel, "The Known World," is a master storyteller. It is an earlier Washington, D.C. that most readers are not familiar with, but you can almost picture the old neighborhoods, long gone, in sepia tones, that thousands of blacks called home. I purchased a copy and it sat on my bookshelf because I was waiting for the *right* time to read it. All Aunt Hagar’s Children is a collection of blistering and mesmerizing stories. ", I thought I was going to love this, having read and much enjoyed one of the stories already. Not a small task in a book with 14 stories. The writing was stiff and the story was not gripping or even very memorable. In the heartbreaking title story, the death of a beloved dog signals the final rupture in a family already rent by divorce. Jones offers up different types: doctors, retired civil servants, schoolchildren but also women-beaters, drug-users, and other ne'er-do-wells. D.C. welcomes the husband but his wife and their found child (literally discovered wrapped in a bundle dangling from a tree in Virginia before they depart for the city) struggle with alienation and the wife makes excuses to return to Virginia and eventually stays put. That's all I can say. Not kidding or exaggerating. Be the first to ask a question about All Aunt Hagar's Children. Grant it they were different families, different make-up of the family -- I just felt like one story could have blended into the next. All Aunt Hagar's Children: A Multimedia Literary Analysis 1 2018-06-10T16:40:02-05:00 Kenton Rambsy 1a8e7c8308fe3da2a51e94dd08e0858bab2a9153 11 23 The following essays explore the life experiences Jones captures in his stories while challenging and reinforcing normalized representations of the Black community. Didn't read every single story. B-Sides: Edward P. Jones’s “All Aunt Hagar’s Children”. He fleshes out the life of the city through the tales of these citizens creating a richly layered construction of reasonable verisimilitude, with a few dashes of the magical but for me something was still lacking. The South is like that. This book of 14 stories gets better and better (and I'm only on pg 149). Edward P. Jones was lionized with the publication of The Known World, but that book kind of left me cold. Some, like the excellent “Root Worker,” include southern starts or returns, even if just across the Potomac. Edward P. Jones is an amazing writer. All Aunt Hagar's Children is filled with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Not kidding or exaggerating. Taught by people who had a firm grasp of how big and awful the world could be.”, PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction Nominee (2007), O. Henry Award for 'Old Boys, Old Girls' (2006), Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction (2007), Great African American Short Story Collections, A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru, 'The Office of Historical Corrections' and the Power of the Short Story. $25.95. He breathes life into his characters, who are three dimensional, flawed and complex. Really beautiful, carefully crafted stories about life in DC. All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006) is a collection of short stories by African-American author Edward P. Jones; it was his first book after winning the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. But it is really, really spotty. Specificity, as in he can add the most odd, unusual, or mundane detail to a character or a situation and bring it brings the story o life. They span a range of experiences and times from the late 19th century through to contemporary times. You might not hate this book, so give it a chance. Well out of 13 disks I made it to the 9th before I got terribly bored. There's a masterpiece.). Three years after the publication of his much-heralded, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Known World, Edward P. Jones returned with an elegiac, luminous... Free shipping over $10. That it is set in Washington, D.C. gives it a local interest. Jones has a way of making history a part of the present; these short stories are dense, and each story seems to tell many stories besides the one which is its focus. Welcome back. Edward P. Jones. I couldn't tell whether she'd had a seizure or medical episode - which would make sense practically but not thematically and wouldn't explain the wound - or whether she spoke up and the teacher stabbed her in the hand, fitting in with a story an older relative told her earlier about a teacher who had a pitchfork like the Devil. "The Devil Swims Across the Anacosta" blew my mind and rendered me helplessly amazed. SIX WORD REVIEW: Simply virtuosic. "I'm the black experience!" I don't read too many collections of short stories, but Edward Jones, winner of the Pulitzer for his novel, "The Known World," is a master storyteller. It seemed repetitious. Ishmael was banished to the desert where it is believed he became the father of the Arabs. I couldn't understand what all the excitement was about, unless it was the novelty of a black man writing about a black man who owned black slaves in nineteenth century America. Edward P. Jones is an amazing writer. Jones tells a story in a way that includes hordes of tertiary characters and sometimes spans many years. “Root Worker” tells the story of a smart, highly successful doct. This book of 14 stories gets better and better (and I'm only on pg 149). As Neely Tucker says: This article about a collection of short stories is a stub. It is a touching scene and typical of the tenderness with which Jones can evoke the human spirit. Edward P. Jones has only written a handful of books: Lost in the City, a collection of short stories in 1992, The Known World, a novel, in 2003, and his latest collection, All Aunt Hagar's Children. Short stories I thought would do the trick and I do enjoy Peter Francis James' voice. Talking to other folks who've read it, some agree with me in principle, but have oppo. Almost every story had no ending, most contained adultery, and many contained violence. "[1] Jones is noted for writing long short stories and these are no exception, they are sometimes called "novelistic", characters are fully fleshed out.[1]. Hagar is a biblical figure. *** Just finished this morning. Buy a cheap copy of All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories book by Edward P. Jones. I think I am done with this one, at least for now. The collection of 14 stories centers on African-Americans in Washington D.C. during the 20th century. Aunt Hagar's Blues. " Short stories I thought would do the trick and I do enjoy Peter Francis James' voice. Not only were the main characters strong but the secondary characters were given meaningful roles also. But I changed my opinion about this author when I read his short stories. [She falls at her desk when standing up and thinking about how she's not happy about the treatment of a couple of other students, and then we rejoin her in bed at home with a wound in her hand and her family saying she doesn't have to return to that school. 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 in the city, 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. It is a compelling portrait of African American life in the Washington D.C. of the early 1950s and it touches briefly as well upon African American -- Jewish relations. The visit was quite brief, with most of it taken up with Bethany standing between her father’s legs as he sat in a chair two feet from his bed. About a quarter of the stories are seriously engrossing, about a quarter are 30 to 40 page slogs, and the rest are pretty mediocre. The stories collected here offer a portrait of our nation's capital through the eyes and experiences of a varied group of African Americans who call it home. His third work of fiction and second short story collection, All Aunt Hagar’s Children is every bit as good as its predecessors. I read some of the stories before they were collected, in, These stories are perfect. “Root Worker” tells the story of a smart, highly successful doctor who can’t slow her mother’s declining health until the mother’s aide convinces the family to postpone a vacation to Massachusetts and instead take a trip south to North Carolina to a legendary root worker. The stories of his first and third book are connected. "The Devil Swims Across the Anacosta" blew my mind and rendered me helplessly amazed. All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006) is a collection of short stories by African-American author Edward P. Jones; it was his first book after winning the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for The Known World. The settings range across Washington D.C. throughout the breadth of the 20th century. Beautifully written, some quite haunting. Didn't read every single story. I found the prose of this collection to be denser and infused with more symbolism (some biblical, as the title suggests) and at times, magical elements, in comparison to Lost in the City. I originally began this book several years ago, but never made it all the way through. August 29th 2006 I want to go ahead and review this so I can post it, even though I'm not done--and won't be for awhile. * All Aunt Hagar's Children by Edward P. Jones Amistad/HarperCollins, September 2006 $25.95, ISBN 0-060-55756-0 Edward P. Jones is most often recognized for his work The Known World (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2003), his Pulitzer Prize- and National Book … All Aunt Hagar's Children is a book of short stories about Washington, D.C. by Edward P. Jones. But then there is much I admire in each of these stories--each page would not be an exaggeration. Jones offers up different types: doctors, retired civil servants, schoolchildren but also women-beaters, drug-users, and other ne'er-do-wells. Edward P. Jones has won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Lannan Literary Award for, “We leave, we run away and don't realize how much we'll need to go back home one day. [He sees the murdered man's wife strike a powerful pose and concludes that she was the murderer, although there are plenty of other suspects. Jones displays an easy familiarity with a wide cast of characters, whom you feel he has probably grown up with. Like his first collection, Lost in the City, the stories here are set mostly in Washington, D.C. I read it with lips ajar, in much the way I imagine all those boys out there read "Lolita" (hate that book, love everything else by Nabokov though and have read much of it. Fraught marriages in all their variety are unsparingly scrutinized in “Christmas Party,” Big Dog” and “The Outer Banks." That was less about the quality of the book than it was about my impatience as a reader. But the fourth story “Old Boys, Old Girls” gelled together in a marvelous way as it follows a murderer named Caeser as he serves his time in Lorton prison and then is released back into the world. The phrase, "all Aunt Hagar's children" is one my mother used for black people. Comprising fourteen stories, the book focuses primarily on the lives of African-American residents of “The District,” and the experiences of those who are adjacent to the political powerhouse of the nation, and yet have few rights. I couldn't understand what all the excitement was about, unless it was the novelty of a black man writing about a black man who owned black slaves in nineteenth century America. It's the worst mama in the world and it's the best mama in the world.”, “But my mother wanted her children to be educated by nuns and priests all dressed in black, the way it had been done down through the generations with her people. But I changed my opinion about this author when I read his short stories. Jones is really a master at making daily life, with its minor disappointments and cruelties (and the occasional joy) feel crushingly/euphorically epic. Excerpt: From the story "All Aunt Hagar's Children" -- I left, went down to the corner of M and 4th, and stood there so I could see into Leon's store. It's been a while since I read this, but I'm putting it here, now. I was really excited to read this book as All Aunt Hagar's Children was written by Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones (The Known World). I think the author did a great job of setting the mood, providing the setting and many characters. It did give me an excuse to serve chili dogs to a book club, so there is that. The first couple of stores held my attention but then they began to sound as it the short stories could have been just one long story. The young wife in “In the Blink of God’s Eye” doesn’t fit in Washington as her husband moves her across the river. Like his first collection, Lost in the City, the stories here are set mostly in Washington, D.C. Jones's work is more character-driven and plot is mostly built around an everydayness of the characters, so this specificity really does something for the reading experience. All Aunt Hagar’s Children is above all a neighborhood story. I will try "The Known World" and hope Mr. Jones will become an author I'd suggest others read. [Then for some reason that was unclear to me, she immediately gives up on visiting her husband and flies home instead. The collection of 14 stories centers on African-Americans in Washington D.C.during the 20th century. I read about half of it in November or so, returned it to the library, and checked it out again because I don't like leaving things unfinished. Not all readers will share my short story preferences - I like them to be streamlined and to end with a bang - but that didn't really fit with these stories, which tend to meander along with two or three subplots tha. About a quarter of the stories are seriously engrossing, about a quarter are 30 to 40 page slogs, and the rest are pretty mediocre. There's a masterpiece.). I read about half of it in November or so, returned it to the library, and checked it out again because I don't like leaving things unfinished. I want to save something for late. Start by marking “All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories” as Want to Read: Error rating book. Anita stood at the window. splash 628 2019-02-14T11:55:38-06:00 A Reviewer … Jones tells a story in a way that includes hordes of tertiary characters and sometimes spans many years. The writing was stiff and the story was not gripping or even very memorable. 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