Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: The American Classic, in Words and Photographs, of Three Tenant Families in the Deep South - James Agee

James Agee's naturalistic answer to James Joyce's Ulysses. Inspired by the scope of Joyce's work, Agee tries to do it in a documentarian style for an impoverished American family in the 1930s. Joyce took on Ulysses through an array of styles and structures. Agee doesn't represent the history of literature like Joyce does, but he uses a mixtures of styles and structures to comment on a family and period of history. The ambition is to cover every part of daily life at the time. Photographs by Walker Evans bring light to all the detail in the book. When released in the 40s, critics were harsh but positive reviews came in the 60s once critics were able to transition into comfortability with the style. Unlike Ulysses, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men wasn't an immediate classic and given instant analysis and writings about it so praise was slow to come. Biographies about Agee and texts on the book are recommended if considering reading.