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Summary
Summary
From the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman comes a deep and compassionate novel. A young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to teach visits a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
Author Notes
Ernest James Gaines was born on January 15, 1933, on the River Lake Plantation, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines has been a MacArthur Foundation fellow, awarded the National Humanities Medal, and inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.
Although he was educated in California (at San Francisco State College and Stanford University), his fiction is dominated by images and characters drawn from rural Louisiana, where he was born and raised. Unquestionably the most recognizable, and probably the best, of Gaines's novels is The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), a fictional account of the long life of a black woman born a slave on a Louisiana plantation. Through the stories of the many fascinating people who touch Jane's life, Gaines presents not only a moving perspective on the struggles of African Americans but also a social history of the United States since the Civil War. It is a testimony to Gaines's skill as a writer and storyteller that many people believe Jane Pittman was a real person. Indeed, the novel is frequently misshelved in the biography section of bookstores. In 1993 Gaines also won the Dos Passos Prize and in 2000 he won the National Humanities Medal.
Of Gaines's other works, Bloodline (1976), a collection of five short stories, stands out for its powerful portrayals of young men in search of self-respect and dignity. In 2013 President Barack Obama presented Mr. Gaines with the National Medal of Arts.
Ernest J. Gaines passed away on November 5,2019 at this home in Oscar, LA at the age of 86.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Gaines's first novel in a decade may be his crowning achievement. In this restrained but eloquent narrative, the author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman again addresses some of the major issues of race and identity in our time. The story of two African American men struggling to attain manhood in a prejudiced society, the tale is set in Bayonne, La. (the fictional community Gaines has used previously) in the late 1940s. It concerns Jefferson, a mentally slow, barely literate young man, who, though an innocent bystander to a shootout between a white store owner and two black robbers, is convicted of murder, and the sophisticated, educated man who comes to his aid. When Jefferson's own attorney claims that executing him would be tantamount to killing a hog, his incensed godmother, Miss Emma, turns to teacher Grant Wiggins, pleading with him to gain access to the jailed youth and help him to face his death by electrocution with dignity. As complex a character as Faulkner's Quentin Compson, Grant feels mingled love, loyalty and hatred for the poor plantation community where he was born and raised. He longs to leave the South and is reluctant to assume the level of leadership and involvement that helping Jefferson would require. Eventually, however, the two men, vastly different in potential yet equally degraded by racism, achieve a relationship that transforms them both. Suspense rises as it becomes clear that the integrity of the entire local black community depends on Jefferson's courage. Though the conclusion is inevitable, Gaines invests the story with emotional power and universal resonance. BOMC and QPB alternates. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Choice Review
This work confirms Gaines's position as an important African American and southern novelist. Set in southern Louisiana during the 1940s, the novel focuses on the interaction between a young black man condemned to the electric chair and a black schoolteacher who visits him in his cell. Returning to the thematic concerns of the less effective In My Father's House (1978), Gaines explores the ethnic complexity of the Cajun region, the liberating and repressive aspects of African American religion, and, most centrally, the meaning of "black manhood." Emphasizing the emerging self-awareness of Jefferson, the condemned murderer viewed by his white lawyer as a "hog," Gaines's novel can be seen as a "rewriting" of Richard Wright's Native Son. Much of the power of the novel derives from the struggles of schoolteacher Grant Wiggins to reintegrate his life with his community. The high point of the novel, however, is Jefferson's diary which shares the vernacular eloquence of Celie's letters in Alice Walker's The Color Purple and confirms Gaines's place as a master of American vernacular style. C. Werner; University of WisconsinDSMadison
School Library Journal Review
YA-- No breathless courtroom triumphs or dramatic reprieves alleviate the sad progress toward execution in this latest novel by the author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (Bantam, 1982). The condemned man is Jefferson, a poorly educated man/child whose only crimes are a dim intelligence, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and being black in rural Louisiana in the late 1940s. To everyone, even his own defense attorney, he's an animal, too dumb to understand what is happening to him. But his godmother, Miss Emma, decides that Jefferson will die a man. To accomplish just that, she brings Grant Wiggins, the teacher at the plantation's one-room school and narrator of the novel, into the story. Emotionally blackmailed by two strong-willed old ladies, Grant reluctantly begins visiting Jefferson, committing both men to the painful task of self-discovery. As in his earlier novels, Gaines evokes a sense of reality through rich detail and believable characters in this simple, moving story. YAs who seek thought-provoking reading will enjoy this glimpse of life in the rural South just before the civil rights movement.-- Carolyn E. Gecan, Thomas Jefferson Sci-Tech, Fairfax County, VA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
Two black men (one a teacher, the other a death row inmate) struggle to live, and die, with dignity, in Gaines's most powerful and moving work since The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971). The year is 1948. Harry Truman may have integrated the Armed Forces, but down in the small Cajun town of Bayonne, Louisiana, where the blacks still shuffle submissively for their white masters, little has changed since slavery. When a white liquor- store owner is killed during a robbery attempt, along with his two black assailants, the innocent black bystander Jefferson gets death, despite the defense plea that ``I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.'' Hog. The word lingers like a foul odor and weighs as heavily as the sentence on Jefferson and the woman who raised him, his ``nannan'' (godmother) Miss Emma. She needs an image of Jefferson going to his death like a man, and she turns to the young teacher at the plantation school for help. Meanwhile, Grant Wiggins (the narrator) has his own problems. He loves his people but hates himself for teaching on the white man's terms; visiting Jefferson in jail will just mean more kowtowing, so he goes along reluctantly, prodded by his strong-willed Tante Lou and his girlfriend Vivian. The first visits are a disaster: Jefferson refuses to speak and will not eat his nannan's cooking, which breaks the old lady's heart. But eventually Grant gets through to him (``a hero does for others''); Jefferson eats Miss Emma's gumbo and astonishes himself by writing whole pages in a diary--a miracle, water from the rock. When he walks to the chair, he is the strongest man in the courthouse. By containing unbearably painful emotions within simple declarative sentences and everyday speech rhythms, Gaines has written a novel that is not only never maudlin, but approaches the spare beauty of a classic.
Library Journal Review
What do you tell an innocent youth who was at the wrong place at the wrong time and now faces death in the electric chair? What do you say to restore his self-esteem when his lawyer has publicly described him as a dumb animal? What do you tell a youth humiliated by a lifetime of racism so that he can face death with dignity? The task belongs to Grant Wiggins, the teacher of the Negro plantation school who narrates the story. Grant grew up on the Louisiana plantation but broke away to go to the university. He returns to help his people but struggles over ``whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be.'' The powerful message Grant tells the youth transforms him from a ``hog'' to a hero, and the reader is not likely to forget it, either. Gaines's earlier works include A Gathering of Old Men ( LJ 9/83) and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (Bantam, 1982). BOMC and Quality Paperback Book Club alternate selections; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/92.-- Joanne Snapp, Randolph-Macon Coll . , Ashland, Va. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
I was not there, yet I was there. No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be. Still, I was there. I was there as much as anyone else was there. Either I sat behind my aunt and his godmother or I sat beside them. Both are large women, but his godmother is larger. She is of average height, five four, five five, but weighs nearly two hundred pounds. Once she and my aunt had found their places--two rows behind the table where he sat with his court-appointed attorney--his godmother became as immobile as a great stone or as one of our oak or cypress stumps. She never got up once to get water or go to the bathroom down in the basement. She just sat there staring at the boy's clean-cropped head where he sat at the front table with his lawyer. Even after he had gone to await the jurors' verdict, her eyes remained in that one direction. She heard nothing said in the courtroom. Not by the prosecutor, not by the defense attorney, not by my aunt. (Oh, yes, she did hear one word--one word, for sure: "hog.") It was my aunt whose eyes followed the prosecutor as he moved from one side of the courtroom to the other, pounding his fist into the palm of his hand, pounding the table where his papers lay, pounding the rail that separated the jurors from the rest of the courtroom. It was my aunt who followed his every move, not his godmother. She was not even listening. She had gotten tired of listening, She knew, as we all knew, what the outcome would be. A white man had been killed during a robbery, and though two of the robbers had been killed on the spot, one had been captured, and he, too, would have to die. Though he told them no, he had nothing to do with it, that he was on his way to the White Rabbit Bar and Lounge when Brother and Bear drove up beside him and offered him a ride. After he got into the car, they asked him if he had any money. When he told them he didn't have a solitary dime, it was then that Brother and Bear started talking credit, saying that old Gropé should not mind crediting them a pint since he knew them well, and he knew that the grinding season was coming soon, and they would be able to pay him back then. The store was empty, except for the old storekeeper, Alcee Gropé, who sat on a stool behind the counter. He spoke first. He asked Jefferson about his godmother. Jefferson told him his nannan was all right. Old Gropé nodded his head. "You tell her for me I say hello," he told Jefferson. He looked at Brother and Bear. But he didn't like them. He didn't trust them. Jefferson could see that in his face. "Do for you boys?" he asked. "A bottle of that Apple White, there, Mr. Gropé" Bear said. Old Gropé got the bottle off the shelf, but he did not set it on the counter. He could see that the boys had already been drinking, and he became suspicious. "You boys got money?" he asked. Brother and Bear spread out all the money they had in their pockets on top of the counter. Old Gropé counted it with his eyes. "That's not enough," he said. "Come on, now, Mr. Gropé," they pleaded with him. "You know you go'n get your money soon as grinding start." "No," he said. "Money is slack everywhere. You bring the money, you get your wine." He turned to put the bottle back on the shelf. One of the boys, the one called Bear, started around the counter."You, stop there," Gropé told him. "Go back." Bear had been drinking, and his eyes were glossy, he walked unsteadily, grinning all the time as he continued around the counter. "Go back," Gropé told him. "I mean, the last time now--go back." Bear continued. Gropé moved quickly toward the cash register, where he withdrew a revolver and started shooting. Soon there was shooting from another direction. When it was quiet again, Bear, Gropé, and Excerpted from A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.Table of Contents
| A Lesson Before DyingErnest J. Gaines |
| Leadtext: I WAS NOT THERE, yet I was there |
| No, I did not go to the trial, I did not hear the verdict, because I knew all the time what it would be |
| Still, I was there |
| I was there as much as anyone else was there |
| Either I sat behind my aunt and his godmother or I sat beside them |
| Both are large women, but his godmother is larger |
| She is of average height, five four, five five, but weighs nearly two hundred pounds.Once she and my aunt had found their places - two rows behind the table where he sat with his court - appointed attorney - his godmother became as immobile as a great stone or as one of our oak or cypress stumps |
| She never got up once to get water or go to the bathroom down in the basement |
| She just sat there staring at the boy's cleancropped head where he sat at the front table with his lawyer |
| Even after he had gone to await the jurors' verdict, her eyes remained in that one direction |
| She heard nothing said in the courtroom |
| Not by the prosecutor, not by the defense attorney, not by my aunt |
| (Oh, yes, she did hear one word - one word, for sure: "hog.") It was my aunt whose eyes followed the prosecutor as he moved from one side of the courtroom to the other, pounding his fist into the palm of his hand, pounding the table where his papers lay, pounding the rail that separated the jurors from the rest of the courtroom |
| It was my aunt who followed his every move, not his godmother |
| She was not even listening |
| She had gotten tired of listening |
| She knew, as we all knew, what the outcome would be |
| A white man had been killed during a robbery, and though two of the robbers had been killed on the spot, one had been captured, and he, too, would have to die |
| Though he told them no, he had nothing to do with it, that he was on his way to the White Rabbit Bar and Lounge when Brother and Bear drove up beside him and offered him a ride |
| After he got into the car, they asked him if he had any money |
| When he told them he didn't have a solitary dime, it was then that Brother and Bear started talking credit, saying that old Gropé should not mind crediting them a pint since he knew them well, and he knew that the grinding season was coming soon, and they would be able to pay him back then |
| The store was empty, except for the old storekeeper, Alcee Gropé, who sat on a stool behind the counter |
| He spoke first |
| He asked Jefferson about his godmother |
| Jefferson told him his nannan was all right |
| Old Gropé nodded his head |
| "You tell her for me I say hello," he told Jefferson |
| He looked at Brother and Bear |
| But he didn't like them |
| He didn't trust them |
| Jefferson could see that in his face |
| "Do for you boys?" he asked |
| "A bottle of that Apple White, there, Mr |
| Gropé," Bear said |
| Old Gropé got the bottle off the shelf, but he did not set it on the counter |
| He could see that the boys had already been drinking, and he became suspicious |
| "You boys got money?" he asked |
| Brother and Bear spread out all the money they had in their pockets on top of the counter |
| Old Gropé counted it with his eyes |
| "That's not enough," he said |
| "Come on, now, Mr |
| Gropé," they pleaded with him |
| "You know you go'n get your money soon as grinding start." "No," he said |
| "Money is slack everywhere |
| You bring the money, you get your wine." He turned to put the bottle back on the shelf |
| One of the boys, the one called Bear, started around the counter |
| "You, stop there," Gropé told him |
| "Go back." Bear had been drinking, and his eyes were glossy, he walked unsteadily, grinning all the time as he continued around the counter |
| "Go back," Gropé told him |
| "I mean, the last time now - go back." Bear continued |
| Gropé moved quickly toward the cash register, where he withdrew a revolver and started shooting |
| Soon there was shooting from another direction |
| When it was quiet again, Bear, Gropé, and Brother were all down on the floor, and only Jefferson was standing.He wanted to run, but he couldn't run |
| He couldn't even think |
| He didn't know where he was |
| He didn't know how he had gotten there |
| He couldn't remember ever getting into the car |
| He couldn't remember a thing he had done all day.He heard a voice calling |
| He thought the voice was coming from the liquor shelves |
| Then he realized that old Gropé was not dead, and that it was he who was calling |
| He made himself go to the end of the counter |
| He had to look across Bear to see the storekeeper |
| Both lay between the counter and the shelves of alcohol |
| Several bottles had been broken, and alcohol and blood covered their bodies as well as the floor |
| He stood there gaping at the old man slumped against the bottom shelf of gallons and half gallons of wine |
| He didn't know whether he should go to him or whether he should run out of there |
| The old man continued to call: "Boy? Boy? Boy?" Jefferson became frightened |
| The old man was still alive |
| He had seen him |
| He would tell on him |
| Now he started babbling |
| "It wasn't me |
| It wasn't me, Mr |
| Gropé |
| It was Brother and Bear |
| Brother shot you |
| It wasn't me |
| They made me come with them |
| You got to tell the law that, Mr |
| Gropé |
| You hear me, Mr |
| Gropé?"But he was talking to a dead man.Still he did not run |
| He didn't know what to do |
| He didn't believe that this had happened |
| Again he couldn't remember how he had gotten there |
| He didn't know whether he had come there with Brother and Bear, or whether he had walked in and seen all this after it happened |
| He looked from one dead body to the other |
| He didn't know whether he should call someone on the telephone or run |
| He had never dialed a telephone in his life, but he had seen other people use them |
| He didn't know what to do |
| He was standing by the liquor shelf, and suddenly he realized he needed a drink and needed it badly |
| He snatched a bottle off the shelf, wrung off the cap, and turned up the bottle, all in one continuous motion |
| The whiskey burned him like fire - his chest, his belly, even his nostrils |
| His eyes watered; he shook his head to clear his mind |
| Now he began to realize where he was |
| Now he began to realize fully what had happened |
| Now he knew he had to get out of there |
| He turned |
| He saw the money in the cash register, under the little wire clamps |
| He knew taking money was wrong |
| His nannan had told him never to steal |
| He didn't want to steal |
| But he didn't have a solitary dime in his pocket |
| And nobody was around, so who could say he stole it? |
| Surely not one of the dead men |
| He was halfway across the room, the money stuffed inside his jacket pocket, the half bottle of whiskey clutched in his hand, when two white men walked into the store |
| That was his story |
| The prosecutor's story was different |
| The prosecutor argued that Jefferson and the other two had gone there with the full intention of robbing the old man and then killing him so that he could not identify them |
| When the old man and the other two robbers were all dead, this one - it proved the kind of animal he really was - stuffed the money into his pockets and celebrated the event by drinking over their still-bleeding bodies |
| The defense argued that Jefferson was innocent of all charges except being at the wrong place at the wrong time |
| There was absolutely no proof that there had been a conspiracy between himself and the other two |
| The fact that Mr |
| Gropé shot only Brother and Bear was proof of Jefferson's innocence |
| Why did Mr. Gropé shoot one boy twice and never shoot at Jefferson once? Because Jefferson was merely an innocent bystander |
| He took the whiskey to calm his nerves, not to celebrate |
| He took the money out of hunger and plain stupidity."Gentlemen of the jury, look at this - this - this boy |
| I almost said man, but I can't say man |
| Oh, sure, he has reached the age of twenty-one, when we, civilized men, consider the male species has reached manhood, but would you call this - this - this a man? No, not I |
| I would call it a boy and a fool |
| A fool is not aware of right and wrong |
| A fool does what others tell him to do |
| A fool got into that automobile |
| A man with a modicum of intelligence would have seen that those racketeers meant no good |
| But not a fool |
| A fool got into that automobile |
| A fool rode to the grocery store |
| A fool stood by and watched this happen, not having the sense to run."Gentlemen of the jury, look at him - look at him - look at this |
| Do you see a man sitting here? |
| Do you see a man sitting here? |
| I ask you, I implore, look carefully - do you see a man sitting here? |
| Look at the shape of this skull, this face as flat as the palm of my hand - look deeply into those eyes |
| Do you see a modicum of intelligence? |
| Do you see anyone here who could plan a murder, a robbery, can plan - can plan - can plan anything? |
| A cornered animal to strike quickly out of fear, a trait inherited from his ancestors in the deepest jungle of blackest Africa - yes, yes, that he can do - but to plan? |
| To plan, gentlemen of the jury? |
| No, gentlemen, this skull here holds no plans |
| What you see here is a thing that acts on command |
| A thing to hold the handle of a plow, a thing to load your bales of cotton, a thing to dig your ditches, to chop your wood, to pull your corn |
| That is what you see here, but you do not see anything capable of planning a robbery or a murder |
| He does not even know the size of his clothes or his shoes |
| Ask him to name the months of the year |
| Ask him does Christmas come before or after the Fourth of July? |
| Mention the names of Keats, Byron, Scott, and see whether the eyes will show one moment of recognition |
| Ask him to describe a rose, to quote one passage from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights |
| Gentlemen of the jury, this man planned a robbery? |
| Oh, pardon me, pardon me, I surely did not mean to insult your intelligence by saying 'man' - would you please forgive me for committing such an error?"Gentlemen of the jury, who would be hurt if you took this life? Look back to that second row |
| Please look |
| I want all twelve of you honorable men to turn your heads and look back to that second row |
| What you see there has been everything to him - mama, grandmother, godmother - everything |
| Look at her, gentlemen of the jury, look at her well |
| Take this away from her, and she has no reason to go on living |
| We may see him as not much, but he's her reason for existence |
| Think on that, gentlemen, think on it."Gentlemen of the jury, be merciful |
| For God's sake, be merciful |
| He is innocent of all charges brought against him."But let us say he was not |
| Let us for a moment say he was not |
| What justice would there be to take this life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this."I thank you, gentlemen, from the bottom of my heart, for your kind patience |
| I have no more to say, except this: We must live with our own conscience |
| Each and every one of us must live with his own conscience."The jury retired, and it returned a verdict after lunch: guilty of robbery and murder in the first degree |
| The judge commended the twelve white men for reaching a quick and just verdict |
| This was Friday |
| He would pass sentence on Monday.Ten o'clock on Monday, Miss Emma and my aunt sat in the same seats they had occupied on Friday |
| Reverend Mose Ambrose, the pastor of their church, was with them |
| He and my aunt sat on either side of Miss Emma |
| The judge, a short, red-faced man with snow-white hair and thick black eyebrows, asked Jefferson if he had anything to say before the sentencing |
| My aunt said that Jefferson was looking down at the floor and shook his head |
| The judge told Jefferson that he had been found guilty of the charges brought against him, and that the judge saw no reason that he should not pay for the part he played in this horrible crime.Death by electrocution |
| The governor would set the date.© 1993, Ernest J |
| Gaines |
