Reviews

All Aunt Hagar's Children: Stories by Edward P. Jones

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wheresthebirds's review

challenging dark reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.25

I read the first two stories in this collection, but I am now thoroughly enmeshed in reading for the JCC book selection committee. I’m going to set this book aside, for right now anyway.

Honestly, I have a feeling I’m not going to get back to this book. The first two stories I read were wonderful in their way, but I read dutifully rather than breathlessly. The author is a wonderful prose stylist. On page 10, he beautifully captures the protagonists attitude in one sentence: “They were the children of once-upon-a-time slaves, born into a kind of freedom, but they had traveled down through the womb with what all of their kind had been born with — the knowledge that God had promised next week to everyone but themselves.”

But prose style isn’t enough. Jones begins the story with an attention-grabber: Ruth finds an abandoned baby in a tree. She takes him home, she raises the boy, she names him Miles, after her father-in-law.

Well, isn’t the story going to continue with the story of Ruth, and her jealous husband Aubrey, and Miles? That’s where I wanted to go. But then we wander off into the less-engaging story of blind Willie and his girlfriend Melinda, and we never get back to the story that originally grabbed me.

Critics have lauded the author and awarded him the Pulitzer Prize. But I feel frustrated and cheated and just want to know what happened to that teenage couple, Aubrey and Ruth, and their unplanned non-biological child.

ericfheiman's review

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5.0

Slightly less of an achievement than Jones’ novel The Known World, if only because there’s less “shock of the new” and these interconnected short stories can’t quite match World’s collective, holistic force. Still, though, what a powerful and necessary voice.

katzreads's review

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3.0

Very good!

harpelha0801's review

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4.0

I read this while re-reading Lost in the City to see how the stories connected. Lost in the City is the more powerful collection in my mind, but I enjoyed reading these stories as well, especially Root Worker, A Rich Man, and Tapestry. I would read anything this man wrote.

jerihurd's review

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2.0

I loved the Known World and love short stories, so really wanted to love this. I didn't. "It was OK" pretty much sums up the collection.

judyward's review

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4.0

This is a collection of 14 short stories set in Washington, D.C. that illuminate different aspects of the African-American experience during the 20th century in that city. The characters in these stories range from individuals moving to Washington from the country seeking a better life to individuals who were born and raised in the city. Since I was also born in Washington, D.C into a family where all four of my grandparents moved to Washington from the Virginia countryside seeking economic advancement, I could identify with many of the episodes and attitudes contained in these stories. Also, I enjoyed this book because Washington, D.C. became a character in each of the stories. I could visualize the places visited, the routes traveled, and the locations described. All of this made these stories very personal to me, but would be equally enjoyed by any reader.