All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006) by Edward P. Jones

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

All Aunt Hagar's Children (2006)

by Edward P. Jones

Washington, DC

Washington DC: 4/12

    Edward P. Jones was the highest (#3\4) listed author on the New York Times Best 1001 Books of the 21st Century who I had never read (or heard of! Sad!).  His novel, The Known World was a Pulitzer Prize winner and general all-around banger.  It was preceded by one book of short stories and followed by a second book of short stories (this book).  Jones has the most iconic artistic biography I've ever seen- something approaching perfection in terms of the concerns of this blog.

   Jones left school in 1981 after he got his MFA.  His first collection of short stories was published in 1992, and I'd imagine he was working towards that since before he graduated from school, a decade long process of getting his short-stories published wherever and then convincing a publisher to take a chance on the collection.  That's a very standard first step for almost all the writers of literary fiction in the modern era.  Were one to pursue a path towards being a published author you would have to say, "OK, I'm going to spend at least five years actually writing short stories that possess some awareness of the market for short stories, I'm going to have to write more than one story, send them out to more than one publication, accept that people are going to be uninterested, keep going AND have some idea that this is going to work out and at the end of that I'm going to have to produce a novel."

    So Jones publishes Lost in the City in 1992 and it gets good marks. Enough to get his publisher, which gets purchased by HarperCollins in 1999- to put out his debut novel, The Known World, which is published in 2003, meaning that he completed it in 2002- a decade after the Lost in the City comes out, which, I think is the absolute limit for a reasonable length of time to elapse between publications.  There is no question that there is an ideal length between publication dates in all areas where market capitalism and artistic production intersect- a year between albums, two or three years between books, 3 to 5 years between films for a director, etc. 

   The Known World was a big bet- taking a decade to write and publish.  However, it was a hit.  He wins the Pulitzer Prize.  He starts teaching at George Washington University and then in 2010 he gets a full professorship.   In 2006, he published this book, another collection of short-stories connected to his first collection.  And that, my friends, is all he wrote.

  After The Known World placed number four on the best books of the 21st century list the Times sent A.O. Scott out to track him down and let him know.   It's just about a perfect interview- that of an artist who has said what he had to say and doesn't feel a need- either financial or psychological to continue to attract attention to himself.  Perfect!  That is the perfect artistic career.