The late Pulitzer-winning writer James Agee's New York home is currently listed for $6M by his daughter, Andrea, reports Curbed. It was in the late 1940s that the famous author and his wife occupied the two-family brick townhouse in the city, notes the site.
The Soho townhouse is reportedly where the Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel, "A Death in the Family" was created. The Agee home boasts 11-foot high ceilings, five-intricately designed fireplaces and a sun room, describes Curbed.
James was born in Tennessee in 1909 who at a young age of seven, lost his father, Hugh James, in an automobile accident, notes The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). His mother, Laura, who valued education, enlisted James in St. Andrew's Episcopal boarding school and through Father James Flye, the young boy facing a difficult period in his life, found himself another father figure, PBS adds.
James and Father Flye went to Europe in 1925, and after, the the teen-aged Agee registered at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire and wrote plays, poems, stories, articles and reviews for the "Exeter Monthly," a publication of the school, informs PBS. He became the president of The Lantern Club and editor of the Monthly, notes Good Reads. He then was accepted as part of Harvard University's class of 1932, where his talents in writing further flourished, and was tasked to be the coveted editor-in-chief of the Harvard Advocate, informs the website.
When he graduated from Harvard, he worked as a writer for Fortune and Time magazines, and in 1942, he became a film critic for Time and was said to be reviewing up to six books per week, along with his colleague, Whittaker Chambers, claims Good Reads. The site even described the two as running "the back of the book" for Time as their names were prominently displayed on back of the books as the reviewers. His fame for being a film critic reportedly rose when he transferred to "The Nation."
In 1948, he managed to be a freelance writer and one assignment about the great silent movie comedians, namely Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd and Harry Langdon, was well-received by Life Magazine. This work of James had even contributed mainly for "reviving Keaton's career," as mentioned on Good Reads.
Of Keaton, he wrote a powerful review, "He used this great, sad, motionless face to suggest various related things: a one-track mind near the track's end of pure insanity; mulish imperturbability under the wildest of circumstances; how dead a human being can get and still be alive; an awe-inspiring sort of patience and power to endure, proper to granite but uncanny in flesh and blood," as published on Britannica.
Britannica states that Agee has an innate keen wit that is remarkably lucid, enjoyable and charming. For the 1948 musical, "You Were Meant for Me," he reportedly gave only a single sentence "That's what you think" review.
Before he died in 1955, he finished several works as a scriptwriter such as the "The African Queen "(1951) that gave him an Oscar nomination, "The Night of the Hunter" (1955) and "A Death in the Family" (1957), to name a few, notes Britannica.
