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reading_to_write's Reviews (207)
A classic, an important read in the canon of nonfiction. Agee is a master poet who takes the reader thoroughly into his experience with southern tenant farmers, dissecting his own role which he acknowledges as self-serving as much as he wishes to expose and enlighten the tenant Farmer existence. His digression into fake news and the role of media is even more poignant today, and while his examination of his role sometimes strays into beating that subject to a pulp, it’s an important “discussion” to have- one that is again made more poignant when read today when many are having the same conversation (who gets to tell other people’s stories and why?). Not an easy read, but a very important one.
Author has a readable writing style, tho it sometimes struck me as overly simplistic- especially since I felt the voice of her main character was the same as the voice of Evelyn, which was disconcerting. It may have been on purpose- ie, the main character wrote the story we are presented as Evelyn’s first-person voice, although it would have been nice to have stronger clues. I liked the “casting” of characters, who were women-of-color, but then the characters were so lightly written- that is there was not much depth to them, really - that it had the effect of “white-washing” the women. Evelyn never struggled with giving up her heritage (I’ve never met a Cuban who was not proud of being so....) and Monique barely touched on her Black heritage and the loss of her father, and therefore that part of her self. So it came across as just.... casting. Not true to life characters. Book seemed to drag on a bit, which was more my reaction to the author’s voice and her characters- a surface treatment, as it were. “Seven Husbands” wins high marks for stepping outside the box in choice of characters and having a main character (Evelyn) who isn’t a very good person but who you like anyhow. It would make a good beach read, a good recasting of a Hollywood story, but it is vapid.
