And Their Children After Them

For readers of the original Agee/Evans collaboration, "And Their Children" is well worth the time. The reporter and photographer tracked down the 116 living offspring of the pseudonymous Gudger, Ricketts, and Woods families, as well as those who were part of the original book (12 of 22 who appeared in "Let Us Now" were still alive when they began their research in 1986). Not all were willing to be interviewed or photographed, but many were. As with the first book, the tale here is not a particularly happy one. The author begins by recounting the suicide of Maggie Louise Gudger, age 10 in 1936, a particular favorite of Agee's, and dead at age 45--the same age at which Agee himself died from drink. And yet there are varying degrees of hope in many of the stories, such as that of Maggie Louise's daughter Debbie and her children. The structure of the book follows each family through different periods: 1936-1940; 1940-1960; and 1960-1986. The author also includes sections on one of the local landowning families (which was far from rich!) and an African-American sharecropping family. Along the way, we learn surprising things about the evil (and Faulknerian) Fred Ricketts, the fate of Clair Bell (she did not die at age 4, as Agee had feared she would), the struggles of George Gudger, and the families' views on Agee, Evans, and the original book. About the children and grandchildren, we find out about those who ran away (and usually came back) and those who stayed; marriages; children; the end of farming; attempts at succeeding at school and at work; closeness and bitterness. It's all grippingly told. And the photographs that allow one to compare the state of things in 1936 and 1986 are excellent. Several photos exactly re-capture the originals. Quibbles: Naturally, I think, the sections on the two families who did not appear in the first book are less interesting. They could have been abbreviated. Also, the author's (negative) take on the state of America in 1986 is garden-variety journalism for that time. These sections are easily avoided, however, and do not detract from the writing about the original families. Counter to the author's gloomy opinions, his stories indicate that many of these descendents of share-croppers emerged from the Depression to enjoy a slow but steady material progress. Maggie Louise's grandchildren, now in their thirties, should do even better over the course of their lives. One hopes that another writer-photographer team will venture to Hobe's Hill in 2036 to test that proposition.

While I have Let Us Now Praise Famous Men on deck to read as well, the friend who loaned me the books explained she found And Their Children After Them first, and actually liked reading them in reverse order. So, I chose to follow her lead. The book, even standing alone, is an intensely personal and touching look into the lives of people who many of us who enjoy the luxury of writing reviews on the Internet can never really understand. The backgrounds, upbringings and challenges were so vastly different, and the book does a good job of showing us something different, something very real. I can understand the retiscence of some to participate in the book -- while reading passages in this book I often thought to myself what it would feel like to be the person being written about and to see the things about them in print. Like our society, there is a great deal of judgement in the book -- while they try to avoid it, it is there, and it's painful at times. But it's all worth it, in my opinion, to uncover the many thought provoking things that relate to our world today, and that give me a better understanding of history and people's place within it.

This book should be read right after reading James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Mem. Unfortuantely I read it over four years before I read Agee's work. When I read this book--in Feb 1996--I wrote to myself: This is a book Newt Gingrich and the crazy House freshmen should read--people who are so intent that those who cannot make it on their own should not make it.

First introduced to "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" by James Agee and Walker Evans through a PBS Documentary, which inspired a dash to the library to read the book iteself, it wasn't until years later I went back to the library to see if anyone had ever followed up on the story. Confronted with the then new computerized "card catalog" system, I wondered how I might search for any related writings when it dawned on me what a perfect title would naturally evolve from the verse the first book title was taken: ..And Their Children After Them. Imagine my amazement when I tried that title, and there it was! Maharidge and Williamson have followed in Agee and Evans footsteps to give readers "the rest of the story" of the tenant farmers' families and grandchildren, as well as the stories of Agee and Evans themselves. I congratulation them on an excellent book, and offer thanks to the families and their descendants for sharing their lifestories. Their lives did not take the path predicted for them by Agee: life refuses to be harnessed by prediction. Some went farther than anyone could have anticipated, while others came to a place, if possible, even worse than expected. As a second generation American, descended from Polish and Prussian immigrants who lived comparable lives, but who were blessed to own their own land, I identified closely with these stories, from the first page of "Let Us Praise" to the last page of "And Their Children".

Unfortunately, the synopsis left out that this book won the Pulitzer for Non-fiction in 1991. Maharidge and Williamson followed the footsteps of James Agee who had profiled sharecroppers during the Depression. They found their decendants, and showed that while cotton and sharecropping had died, rural poverty for these families had been passed down to new generations. The front section of the book is a series of photographs by Williamson, and they are tremendous. Moreover, in their reporting, they filled a gap left by Agee by finding a black family of sharecroppers to add to the others profiled. This is a tremendous book. It works on multiple levels, giving both the sweep of Southern social and economic history and bringing it down to individuals. Beyond that, the book is a metaphor for our own time. "If we understand the death of cotton," Maharidge writes in this book, "we understand many things about modern America." This is a tremendous work, highly readable and moving. The recognition these two craftsmen received for it is well-deserved