James Agee, whose death at the age of 45 cut short a brilliant career in American letters, is best known to millions of readers for his posthumous novel, A Death in the Family.

In The Morning Watch, his only other published novel, the extraordinary power of language and the themes that so moved readers of A Death in the Family may already be seen. In prose of astonishing clarity and intensity, Agee captured the portrait of an appealing and very real boy - serious, pitiable, funny - at the moment of his initiation into a feared yet fascinating world.