John Shade - Shade and Family

Shade and Family

The structure is notoriously difficult to unravel, but most readers agree that Shade is a poet married to his teenage sweetheart, Sybil. Their only child, a daughter named Hazel, apparently committed suicide some time before the novel's action begins. Shade lives in the college town of New Wye, amidst the Appalachian Mountains. His fame is sufficient for television pundits to often mention him in the same breath (just "one oozy footprint behind") as his fellow poet Robert Frost, an association which Shade does not entirely enjoy, perhaps because Frost is always mentioned first.

Read more about this topic:  John Shade

Famous quotes containing the words shade and/or family:

    Leaves of the summer, lovely summer’s pride,
    Sweet is the shade below your silent tree,
    William Barnes (1801–1886)

    Every family has one passage of scripture they stumble over.
    Chinese proverb.