The Morning Watch

The Morning Watch by James Agee, like his A Death in the Family, which won him the Pulitzer Prize, is autobiographical. It describes the experiences of twelve-year-old Richard during the early hours of Good Friday and the early stages of spring, in a church school in the Tennessee mountains. In this story of change and visitations, Agee has come close to a small triumph: he has pierced the protective shell of a boy's personality and exposed his religious exaltation without once falling into...