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A Lesson Before Dying
A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shoot out in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he struggles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his pride to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting and defying the expected. Ernest J. Gaines brings to this novel the same rich sense of place, the same deep understanding of the human psyche, and the same compassion for a people and their struggle that have informed his previous, highly praised works of fiction.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Ernest J. Gaines
53 books940 followersErnest James Gaines was a novelist, short story writer, and teacher. Born to a sharecropping family, Ernest James Gaines was picking cotton in the fields by age nine and only attended school five or six months a year. When he was fifteen, he moved to California to join his mother and stepfather, because his Louisiana parish had no high school for African Americans. It was in California that he began writing. He attended San Francisco State University, served in the army, and won a writing fellowship to Stanford University. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, awarded the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts, and inducted into the French Order of Arts and Letters as a Chevalier.
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September 12, 2023
A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines [Revised, spoilers hidden 9/12/23]
I think this book deserves to be considered a classic of American literature about Black-white relations in the American South. Two other books I think of in this category (there are several others) are To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help. None are “great literature” in a literary sense – great writing - but they are popular books and they tell stories that need to be told. For those skeptical about The Help as a classic, consider that it has more than 2 million ratings on GR and 85,000 reviews and that it is assigned reading in high school and college courses. So, despite its lack of literary brilliance, I think it’s inevitable that it will come to be thought of as a classic. Of the three, Gaines’ book is the most “genuine,” if I may use that word, because it was written by an African American man who grew up as a son of sharecroppers, picking cotton when he was six years old.
The story is set among the French Creole population in Louisiana, probably about the time the author was growing up, the Jim Crow era. Some French influence remains in the language from Cajun culture in things like calling their aunt ‘Tante’ or their godfather ‘Parain.’
The story starts with Jefferson, a young Black man brought up by his godmother. He’s slow and almost uneducated. One fateful day he takes a ride with two other young Black men who end up in a shootout with a white store clerk. The two Black men and the store clerk all die. Jefferson had nothing to do with it. At his trial, Jefferson’s lawyer points out his ignorance, the ‘lack of slope in his forehead,’ and tells the all-white jury “Why, I would as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.” (And Jefferson’s relations understand what the lawyer is trying to do – it’s their only hope.)
Of course, to the all-white jury, the facts in the case are ‘straightforward’: a white man was killed; a Black man was there; he’s sentenced to die in the electric chair. We know all this a few pages into the book. The trial is not the focus of the book – it’s not a John Grisham novel.
The focus of the story now turns to Grant, a young Black man who is the teacher in a run-down school for Black children. He’s one of the few educated Black men in town; folks call him ‘professor.’ We learn about the school. It’s a public school even though it’s housed in an old church. Grant is the only teacher for six grades. They use worn-out books with missing pages discarded by white students. Kids bring in wood to heat the building in winter. The students kneel in front of the pews to use the seats as desks.
Grant’s parents live in California so he lives with his aunt, the best friend of Jefferson’s godmother. Jefferson’s godmother has one wish before her godson’s execution: that Grant do whatever he can to can to get Jefferson to die like a man and not 'like a hog.'
Grant is reluctant and has no idea how to approach this task during the few months of life Jefferson has left. Grant is educated but agnostic, so the godmother also asks her elderly minister to intervene with Jefferson. It becomes almost a competition between the men: when Jefferson goes to his execution, ‘will he kneel or will he stand’?
Grant and the minister have their work cut out for them: Jefferson is in a stupor, refusing to talk, even to greet visitors nor eat the food his godmother lovingly prepares for him. He says he’s a hog and will die like one. The story line is helped along with a love interest – Grant and a female teacher in a neighboring town.
A lot of the story is a catalog of how whites of that era treated Blacks.
Grant talks with a group of white men: “I tried to decide just how I should respond to them. Whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be.” Language is the key. He takes the high road in talking of his aunt and says “…she doesn’t feel that …” The white man says: “She doesn’t, huh?”…He emphasized ‘doesn’t.’ I was supposed to have said ‘don’t.’ I was being too smart.”
Are all white people like that? No, one is not. Just one: a young white deputy at the jail who is friendly toward Grant and Jefferson and who tries to help them out with the various obstacles the sheriff puts in their way and with the indignities of searches when they arrive at the jail.
Nor are Blacks immune from racism.
Jefferson keeps a diary in his primitive writing. Those eight pages of misspelled words written without capitalization or punctuation near the end of the book have to be included in any anthology of the saddest things ever written. It’s a real tear-jerker.
As I wrote earlier. I consider this book a classic. I’m giving it a ‘5’ and adding it to my favorites. I wish I had read it sooner.
As a child, the author (1933-2019) lived the impoverished life he wrote about, literally growing up in old slave quarters on a plantation. In his novels he used his background to create the fictional world of Bayonne in St. Raphael Parish, Louisiana. While A Lesson Before Dying is his most-read work, the general public may know him better for the TV movie made from one of his other works, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, modeled on his aunt who raised him. A Lesson Before Dying was also made into an HBO movie.
Top photo: French Creole people from frenchcreoles.com
Photo of a shack that was a home, still standing on the plantation where the author grew up. From myneworleans.com
The author from diverseeducation.com
I think this book deserves to be considered a classic of American literature about Black-white relations in the American South. Two other books I think of in this category (there are several others) are To Kill a Mockingbird and The Help. None are “great literature” in a literary sense – great writing - but they are popular books and they tell stories that need to be told. For those skeptical about The Help as a classic, consider that it has more than 2 million ratings on GR and 85,000 reviews and that it is assigned reading in high school and college courses. So, despite its lack of literary brilliance, I think it’s inevitable that it will come to be thought of as a classic. Of the three, Gaines’ book is the most “genuine,” if I may use that word, because it was written by an African American man who grew up as a son of sharecroppers, picking cotton when he was six years old.
The story is set among the French Creole population in Louisiana, probably about the time the author was growing up, the Jim Crow era. Some French influence remains in the language from Cajun culture in things like calling their aunt ‘Tante’ or their godfather ‘Parain.’
The story starts with Jefferson, a young Black man brought up by his godmother. He’s slow and almost uneducated. One fateful day he takes a ride with two other young Black men who end up in a shootout with a white store clerk. The two Black men and the store clerk all die. Jefferson had nothing to do with it. At his trial, Jefferson’s lawyer points out his ignorance, the ‘lack of slope in his forehead,’ and tells the all-white jury “Why, I would as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.” (And Jefferson’s relations understand what the lawyer is trying to do – it’s their only hope.)
Of course, to the all-white jury, the facts in the case are ‘straightforward’: a white man was killed; a Black man was there; he’s sentenced to die in the electric chair. We know all this a few pages into the book. The trial is not the focus of the book – it’s not a John Grisham novel.
The focus of the story now turns to Grant, a young Black man who is the teacher in a run-down school for Black children. He’s one of the few educated Black men in town; folks call him ‘professor.’ We learn about the school. It’s a public school even though it’s housed in an old church. Grant is the only teacher for six grades. They use worn-out books with missing pages discarded by white students. Kids bring in wood to heat the building in winter. The students kneel in front of the pews to use the seats as desks.
Grant’s parents live in California so he lives with his aunt, the best friend of Jefferson’s godmother. Jefferson’s godmother has one wish before her godson’s execution: that Grant do whatever he can to can to get Jefferson to die like a man and not 'like a hog.'
Grant is reluctant and has no idea how to approach this task during the few months of life Jefferson has left. Grant is educated but agnostic, so the godmother also asks her elderly minister to intervene with Jefferson. It becomes almost a competition between the men: when Jefferson goes to his execution, ‘will he kneel or will he stand’?
Grant and the minister have their work cut out for them: Jefferson is in a stupor, refusing to talk, even to greet visitors nor eat the food his godmother lovingly prepares for him. He says he’s a hog and will die like one. The story line is helped along with a love interest – Grant and a female teacher in a neighboring town.
A lot of the story is a catalog of how whites of that era treated Blacks.
Grant talks with a group of white men: “I tried to decide just how I should respond to them. Whether I should act like the teacher that I was, or like the nigger that I was supposed to be.” Language is the key. He takes the high road in talking of his aunt and says “…she doesn’t feel that …” The white man says: “She doesn’t, huh?”…He emphasized ‘doesn’t.’ I was supposed to have said ‘don’t.’ I was being too smart.”
Are all white people like that? No, one is not. Just one: a young white deputy at the jail who is friendly toward Grant and Jefferson and who tries to help them out with the various obstacles the sheriff puts in their way and with the indignities of searches when they arrive at the jail.
Nor are Blacks immune from racism.
Jefferson keeps a diary in his primitive writing. Those eight pages of misspelled words written without capitalization or punctuation near the end of the book have to be included in any anthology of the saddest things ever written. It’s a real tear-jerker.
As I wrote earlier. I consider this book a classic. I’m giving it a ‘5’ and adding it to my favorites. I wish I had read it sooner.
As a child, the author (1933-2019) lived the impoverished life he wrote about, literally growing up in old slave quarters on a plantation. In his novels he used his background to create the fictional world of Bayonne in St. Raphael Parish, Louisiana. While A Lesson Before Dying is his most-read work, the general public may know him better for the TV movie made from one of his other works, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, modeled on his aunt who raised him. A Lesson Before Dying was also made into an HBO movie.
Top photo: French Creole people from frenchcreoles.com
Photo of a shack that was a home, still standing on the plantation where the author grew up. From myneworleans.com
The author from diverseeducation.com
August 23, 2016
How did I feel at the end of this book....uplifted and beaten down, both. All the love and all the hate and all the even more stultifying indifference. All the indignity and indignation. So many very heavy feelings spread through this sad story, but there are moments of redemption if you watch carefully for them.
Many already know of the story...the teenaged boy who is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up sentenced to death. His family wants him to die as a man...and wants--no demands--the plantation teacher assist in this job. Many people change during the course of this story, including any thoughtful readers.
Shortly after starting this book, I realized that I was reading something very special, powerful, important. And I realized that I was very glad to be reading it, no matter how difficult it might ultimately become. Now that I have finished reading, I can only add that my first impressions were correct. I believe every person in this country should read this book.
Many already know of the story...the teenaged boy who is in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up sentenced to death. His family wants him to die as a man...and wants--no demands--the plantation teacher assist in this job. Many people change during the course of this story, including any thoughtful readers.
Shortly after starting this book, I realized that I was reading something very special, powerful, important. And I realized that I was very glad to be reading it, no matter how difficult it might ultimately become. Now that I have finished reading, I can only add that my first impressions were correct. I believe every person in this country should read this book.
September 10, 2020
Reading Road Trip: 2020
Current location: Louisiana
Man walk on two foots; hogs on four hoofs.
The entire front of my shirt is soaked right now, from tears. I am wrecked. Wrecked.
I do not understand several things, at this moment, as I have just finished this book:
(1) How did I not know who Ernest J. Gaines was, before I researched a “Louisiana” read for my road trip last year?
(2) Why isn't this book an American classic, as well known as To Kill A Mockingbird?
(3) Are all of his books this good?
Damn it. I feel in over my head right now. Can I do justice to this story, in my response?
First off, I was completely hesitant to begin this. This novel has a boring cover, an uninspired title, and I had never heard of this author before. The story starts off with some awkward dialogue between the two lovers, Grant and Vivian, and I was rolling my eyes, early on, preparing myself for disaster.
It was the total opposite. The total opposite! Within just a short chapter or two from the bad dialogue, Mr. Gaines seemed to hit his stride, describing his surroundings in such detail, I felt I was there:
After leaving the quarter, I drove down a graveled road for about two miles, then along a paved road beside the St. Charles River for another ten miles. There were houses and big live oak and pecan trees on either side of the road, but not as many on the riverbank side. There, instead of houses and trees, there were fishing wharves, boat docks, nightclubs, and restaurants for whites. There were one or two nightclubs for colored, but there were not very good.
This story doesn't take place in New Orleans, but in a small, fictional town known as Bayonne, Louisiana. It's the late 1940s, but, given the surroundings and the social mores, it could easily be the 1840s. The residents of this community still call their home “the plantation,” and the protagonist, Grant Wiggins, “[knows] what it means to be a slave.”
Grant is an educated man, known on the plantation as “The Professor,” but he missed an opportunity to move with his parents to California and instead fell in love with a local woman in the small town, after accepting a teaching position.
When a “cousin” named Jefferson is sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, Grant's aunt and the young man's godmother become obsessed with Grant's role in “rehabilitating” Jefferson to “walk as a man” to his execution and accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior before dying.
This is a big task to ask of Grant, who is not only an agnostic, but a jaded man who has long given up on his civic duties.
What follows is one of the most touching and upsetting stories I've ever read, and Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma, broke whatever was left of my heart. ("Oh, Lord Jesus, stand by, stand by.")
I realized, reading this story, that we can hold up 8 billion signs that read, “Black Lives Matter,” but if we don't treat people with respect and common decency when we interact with each other, it'll all amount to a pile of bullshit in the end.
There is nothing didactic here; Mr. Gaines is not a preacher, and his protagonist, Grant Wiggins, isn't much of a classroom teacher.
What is conveyed here is subtle. . . a subtle, cruel perversity in the disrespect, invalidation and sterilization of an entire people.
What is the solution? Well, Mr. Gaines doesn't know for sure, but his story makes it clear what happens when we treat people as humans and what happens when we treat them as hogs.
Current location: Louisiana
Man walk on two foots; hogs on four hoofs.
The entire front of my shirt is soaked right now, from tears. I am wrecked. Wrecked.
I do not understand several things, at this moment, as I have just finished this book:
(1) How did I not know who Ernest J. Gaines was, before I researched a “Louisiana” read for my road trip last year?
(2) Why isn't this book an American classic, as well known as To Kill A Mockingbird?
(3) Are all of his books this good?
Damn it. I feel in over my head right now. Can I do justice to this story, in my response?
First off, I was completely hesitant to begin this. This novel has a boring cover, an uninspired title, and I had never heard of this author before. The story starts off with some awkward dialogue between the two lovers, Grant and Vivian, and I was rolling my eyes, early on, preparing myself for disaster.
It was the total opposite. The total opposite! Within just a short chapter or two from the bad dialogue, Mr. Gaines seemed to hit his stride, describing his surroundings in such detail, I felt I was there:
After leaving the quarter, I drove down a graveled road for about two miles, then along a paved road beside the St. Charles River for another ten miles. There were houses and big live oak and pecan trees on either side of the road, but not as many on the riverbank side. There, instead of houses and trees, there were fishing wharves, boat docks, nightclubs, and restaurants for whites. There were one or two nightclubs for colored, but there were not very good.
This story doesn't take place in New Orleans, but in a small, fictional town known as Bayonne, Louisiana. It's the late 1940s, but, given the surroundings and the social mores, it could easily be the 1840s. The residents of this community still call their home “the plantation,” and the protagonist, Grant Wiggins, “[knows] what it means to be a slave.”
Grant is an educated man, known on the plantation as “The Professor,” but he missed an opportunity to move with his parents to California and instead fell in love with a local woman in the small town, after accepting a teaching position.
When a “cousin” named Jefferson is sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit, Grant's aunt and the young man's godmother become obsessed with Grant's role in “rehabilitating” Jefferson to “walk as a man” to his execution and accept Jesus Christ as his personal savior before dying.
This is a big task to ask of Grant, who is not only an agnostic, but a jaded man who has long given up on his civic duties.
What follows is one of the most touching and upsetting stories I've ever read, and Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma, broke whatever was left of my heart. ("Oh, Lord Jesus, stand by, stand by.")
I realized, reading this story, that we can hold up 8 billion signs that read, “Black Lives Matter,” but if we don't treat people with respect and common decency when we interact with each other, it'll all amount to a pile of bullshit in the end.
There is nothing didactic here; Mr. Gaines is not a preacher, and his protagonist, Grant Wiggins, isn't much of a classroom teacher.
What is conveyed here is subtle. . . a subtle, cruel perversity in the disrespect, invalidation and sterilization of an entire people.
What is the solution? Well, Mr. Gaines doesn't know for sure, but his story makes it clear what happens when we treat people as humans and what happens when we treat them as hogs.
August 6, 2016
With raw, unflinching honesty and a brilliant depiction of time and place, this is the story of a young, black man sentenced to death for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. A white man was shot to death, the other two perpetrators dead, someone must be held accountable.
A young school teacher, returned to the quarters to teach the black school children, and now enlisted by his aunt and the condemned man's nana to help the man go to his death as a man, not as an inhuman man, not much better than a hog, a thing, not a person. Poignant depiction of strong women, women who had to be since so many of the men had left and not returned.
In school I read this author but the book assigned was The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, which was also very good. It is difficult for the reader not to e touched by this book, this young man's plight and the sorrow of the people closest to him. The last chapter of this book is unforgettable. At least it is for me.
A young school teacher, returned to the quarters to teach the black school children, and now enlisted by his aunt and the condemned man's nana to help the man go to his death as a man, not as an inhuman man, not much better than a hog, a thing, not a person. Poignant depiction of strong women, women who had to be since so many of the men had left and not returned.
In school I read this author but the book assigned was The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, which was also very good. It is difficult for the reader not to e touched by this book, this young man's plight and the sorrow of the people closest to him. The last chapter of this book is unforgettable. At least it is for me.
March 22, 2019
This account of a school teacher's attempt to bring dignity to the last days of a condemned man in 1940's Louisiana is moving but still somehow disappointing. Shortened, it would have made a fine novella.
July 29, 2016
The third Ernest Gaines novel I've read gets another 5 stars from me. Just as in "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" and "In My Father's House", I was not quite the same person as I turned the last page that I was when I began. There was a tiny seismic shift inside me that I recognized as another piece of understanding in this complicated dance of racial relations between black and white.
A simple story on the surface: Young Jefferson, a black man, is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is sentenced to the electric chair. His Godmother, Miss Emma, asks the local schoolteacher, Grant Wiggins, to visit him in jail and make him understand that he is not a hog with no understanding as the prosecutor decribed him, but a young man that she is proud of. The outcome is known from page one, but the journey is long, complicated, and heart-rending. This is Louisiana in 1948, and the white man is in charge.
As in the other two books I mentioned, the women in this novel are the strong ones, and get things done. Miss Emma and Aunt Lou get what they need through a combination of guilt, bribery and respect. They never hesitate to use them, even on the white people. They know what works. So, apparently, does Ernest J. Gaines. His language is simple and direct, but he can convey a world of emotion and feelings in just a few words. He made me feel humiliation and anger and hurt so many times with just a description of a glance or movement. He made me see that the black man's understanding of the white man has to be many times that of white for black, just as an act of survival.
I ended this novel in tears, not for Jefferson's death, but for his life. "He was the bravest man in the room".
A simple story on the surface: Young Jefferson, a black man, is in the wrong place at the wrong time and is sentenced to the electric chair. His Godmother, Miss Emma, asks the local schoolteacher, Grant Wiggins, to visit him in jail and make him understand that he is not a hog with no understanding as the prosecutor decribed him, but a young man that she is proud of. The outcome is known from page one, but the journey is long, complicated, and heart-rending. This is Louisiana in 1948, and the white man is in charge.
As in the other two books I mentioned, the women in this novel are the strong ones, and get things done. Miss Emma and Aunt Lou get what they need through a combination of guilt, bribery and respect. They never hesitate to use them, even on the white people. They know what works. So, apparently, does Ernest J. Gaines. His language is simple and direct, but he can convey a world of emotion and feelings in just a few words. He made me feel humiliation and anger and hurt so many times with just a description of a glance or movement. He made me see that the black man's understanding of the white man has to be many times that of white for black, just as an act of survival.
I ended this novel in tears, not for Jefferson's death, but for his life. "He was the bravest man in the room".
September 18, 2020
A look back at Jim Crow-era Louisiana. Rosa Parks has yet take her rightful seat during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and it is still another twenty years until the Selma to Montgomery voting rights march. But Jackie Robinson has recently become first baseman of the Brooklyn Dodgers. In a Louisiana parish, Jefferson, a young black man, has been convicted by 12 white men on trumped up charges of robbery and murder. Jefferson’s attorney in his closing argument refers to Jefferson as a pig; in the sense that he’s just too dumb to plan much less carry out such a heinous crime. This defense tactic not only does not work, it becomes a bee in the godmother’s bonnet. Miss Emma wants the local school teacher, Grant Wiggins, to instruct the doomed young man—perhaps enlighten him—so that he might go to the electric chair with some dignity. She had worked for a prominent white family in the parish for ages, The Pichots, so she pleads with the head of the house that Grant the teacher be allowed to visit Jefferson in jail. The teacher himself wants nothing to do with the idea. The teacher thinks Jefferson as good as dead. Professor Wiggins is an angry young man; he’s autocratic with his students, furious with “the system” in the South—who wouldn’t be?—and eager to leave it behind, no doubt for what he perceives as more exciting northern climes. His old schoolteacher, Mr. Ambrose, has given him a good model for his bitterness, and Wiggins, who now holds Ambrose’s old post, seems to be dutifully replicating it. Truly, the submission all people of color must show toward whites during Jim Crow strikes me as soul obliterating. I’m on Wiggins side in his desire to leave. But Vivian, his lover, wants him to stay. She feels going off to a strange city is selfish, that it’s an abandonment of their people, that the only way to break the cycle of poverty and racism is to stay and help. She’s right in this sense, Martin Luther King Jr. was born in 1929 in Atlanta. By 1952, roughly the time of this novel, he has graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary and was soon to launch his ministry. Gaines’s prose is touched with Faulkner like so much southern writing. I doubt the nature of the lesson itself can be anticipated. The narrative underpinnings here depend on faith, specifically Christianity. This doesn’t bother me because I have an intellectual interest in world religions. I found the story very moving.
January 15, 2019
I dare you to read this and not be moved.
Jefferson, a poor, uneducated twenty-one-year-old Black was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time--in a small-town liquor store outside of Bayonne, Louisiana. It is the 1940s. Three men are killed. He is the only survivor. He is “tried”, convicted and sentenced to the electric chair.
His “nannan” has one request. She asks that Grant Wiggins, a teacher at the church school, be allowed to speak to him. Let him die not as a “hog” but as a man. Those are her words, not mine. Will Grant succeed, or won’t he? That Jefferson is to die, is not up for question.
This is a book that is about dignity and strength.
It is about racial prejudice and discrimination in the South.
It is about real kindness, by that I mean giving not what you want to give but what another needs.
It is about education and what it has to achieve, its purpose.
It is about faith and religion. I believe it will satisfy both those with and without religious beliefs.
And more--about what keeps a person alive, about last requests and about the inhumanity of the death sentence.
That is an awful lot for such a short book. In my view the author does succeed with all these topics masterfully. The characters’ words and actions are well chosen, making the tale succinct and powerful.
Th audiobook narration is executed by Lionel Mark Smith and Roger Guenveur Smith. I had some trouble understanding specific words in the beginning. Was the word I was hearing, “hog”, what I was supposed to be hearing?! Then it cleared for me; yes, it was! The black, Southern dialect is strong, and it should be. The tempo is perfect. The narration is remarkably well done, so this I have given five stars.
In my view, this is Ernest J. Gaines best book.
*A Lesson before Dying 4 stars
*Catherine Carmier 3 stars
*The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman 1 star
Jefferson, a poor, uneducated twenty-one-year-old Black was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time--in a small-town liquor store outside of Bayonne, Louisiana. It is the 1940s. Three men are killed. He is the only survivor. He is “tried”, convicted and sentenced to the electric chair.
His “nannan” has one request. She asks that Grant Wiggins, a teacher at the church school, be allowed to speak to him. Let him die not as a “hog” but as a man. Those are her words, not mine. Will Grant succeed, or won’t he? That Jefferson is to die, is not up for question.
This is a book that is about dignity and strength.
It is about racial prejudice and discrimination in the South.
It is about real kindness, by that I mean giving not what you want to give but what another needs.
It is about education and what it has to achieve, its purpose.
It is about faith and religion. I believe it will satisfy both those with and without religious beliefs.
And more--about what keeps a person alive, about last requests and about the inhumanity of the death sentence.
That is an awful lot for such a short book. In my view the author does succeed with all these topics masterfully. The characters’ words and actions are well chosen, making the tale succinct and powerful.
Th audiobook narration is executed by Lionel Mark Smith and Roger Guenveur Smith. I had some trouble understanding specific words in the beginning. Was the word I was hearing, “hog”, what I was supposed to be hearing?! Then it cleared for me; yes, it was! The black, Southern dialect is strong, and it should be. The tempo is perfect. The narration is remarkably well done, so this I have given five stars.
In my view, this is Ernest J. Gaines best book.
*A Lesson before Dying 4 stars
*Catherine Carmier 3 stars
*The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman 1 star
July 8, 2023
This review does not really reveal anything about the plot that you don’t see in the blurb for the book. The novel takes place in the late 1940s on a plantation/township similar to the place where the author was born in southern Louisiana in 1933. As a child Gaines would have been very familiar with the way things worked in the Jim Crow South. Usually a “plantation” brings to mind the antebellum era with large white houses, well bred gentlemen and genteel ladies, live oak trees dripping Spanish Moss among fields of cotton and sugarcane. The plantation in this book is a cluster of fairly primitive houses for black workers on a big farm. The only “white” house is owned by the white farmer and that house is getting shabby. The prevailing social structure keeps everyone in their places no matter what their lives are like. The nearby town is segregated—separate but NOT equal. Two sets of every service. A nicer school for whites, a funeral home for whites, churches for whites, bars for whites. A lesser set of services are back-of-town for the blacks. School, funeral home, bars, etc. A strange system will not allow mixed mulatto people to go to white bars so they resentfully go to the black bar but think they are in a higher social strata.
Of course nothing is really equal as this story will tell you. It concerns a young black man who is tried and convicted pro forma for a murder he didn’t commit. The central character is the black schoolteacher whose nannan insists he teach the young man to die like a man and not a beast. The lessons in the title are learned by more than the young man.
It is a beautifully written but sad, sad book.
Of course nothing is really equal as this story will tell you. It concerns a young black man who is tried and convicted pro forma for a murder he didn’t commit. The central character is the black schoolteacher whose nannan insists he teach the young man to die like a man and not a beast. The lessons in the title are learned by more than the young man.
It is a beautifully written but sad, sad book.
April 23, 2020
Some books, if you don’t like them you feel you’re going to be excommunicated from all decent society and be made to go about wearing sackcloth (still available from Amazon) and ashes and ringing a bell shouting “unclean, unclean”. E.g. The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and everything by Marilyn Robinson. These books are so well meaning and uplifting it would be like publicly declaring that you find kittens unattractive or Van Gogh was a bit crap. A Lesson before Dying is one of these novels. It had some great rage against the machine stuff in it but all that business about getting the wrongly accused black kid to walk like a man to the electric chair to make his old aunt happy was a lot of very slow dancing on the head of a pin and the atheist teacher and the faithful old preacher should have gone the full ten rounds, and the chapter of the wrongly accused black kid’s prison diary was totally Flowers For Algernon and should have been snipped. Etc etc etc.
Where’s my bell?
“Unclean, unclean!”
Where’s my bell?
“Unclean, unclean!”
February 26, 2013
“But let us say he was (guilty). Let us for a moment say he was (guilty). What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.” - Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying.
Jefferson, an African-American man living in Louisiana in the late 1940s, is accused of a murder he didn’t commit. His lawyer uses the “hog” defence to get him off; however, this is unsuccessful and Jefferson is sentenced to death. Jefferson’s godmother feels the importance of Jefferson dying as a “man” not as a “hog”, so she enlists the narrator, Grant, to teach Jefferson how to be a man so he can die with dignity.
Grant was an interesting character in that he was the only educated black man in that community; the community expected a lot from him and the immense pressure he was under was evident. Add to that his questioning of the Christian faith and a complicated romantic relationship. A very moody character, I’m not sure how I felt about him.
I found the following quote immensely powerful as a person who abhors the death penalty regardless of how “bad” the person is: “How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? Who made them God?”
This was definitely a moving book. It stirred up feelings of indignation in me for sure.
Jefferson, an African-American man living in Louisiana in the late 1940s, is accused of a murder he didn’t commit. His lawyer uses the “hog” defence to get him off; however, this is unsuccessful and Jefferson is sentenced to death. Jefferson’s godmother feels the importance of Jefferson dying as a “man” not as a “hog”, so she enlists the narrator, Grant, to teach Jefferson how to be a man so he can die with dignity.
Grant was an interesting character in that he was the only educated black man in that community; the community expected a lot from him and the immense pressure he was under was evident. Add to that his questioning of the Christian faith and a complicated romantic relationship. A very moody character, I’m not sure how I felt about him.
I found the following quote immensely powerful as a person who abhors the death penalty regardless of how “bad” the person is: “How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? Who made them God?”
This was definitely a moving book. It stirred up feelings of indignation in me for sure.
June 10, 2023
''Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person. Justice?''
Occasionally you read a book and think to yourself, why didn't I read this years ago?
A Lesson Before Dying is one of those books. On the surface it's about a miscarrage of justice, but it's about so much more than that. It's about race relations, redemption and salvation. It's a stunning and powerful book that left me utterly gobsmacked. It's rare to read a book and feel a better human being at the end of it. I salute Ernest J. Gaines for doing that.
Occasionally you read a book and think to yourself, why didn't I read this years ago?
A Lesson Before Dying is one of those books. On the surface it's about a miscarrage of justice, but it's about so much more than that. It's about race relations, redemption and salvation. It's a stunning and powerful book that left me utterly gobsmacked. It's rare to read a book and feel a better human being at the end of it. I salute Ernest J. Gaines for doing that.
February 6, 2008
A lesson Before Dying is a very MOVING book. By reading most of the other reviews I'm sure everyone understands what this novel is about. I'm not positive if I would have appreciated this book in High School had I read it 10 years ago. I would like to thank Mr. Gaines for his lessons!! I've typed out a few powerful passages that moved me...There were more but these are just some I made sure I highlighted!
A hero is someone who something for other people. He does something that other men don't and can't do. He is different from other men. He is above other men. No matter who those other men are, the hero, no matter who he is, is above them.
"Do you know what a myth is, Jefferson?" I asked him. "A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better then anyone else on earth -and that's a myth. The last thing they ever want is to see a black man stand, and think, and show that common humanity that is in us all. It would destroy their myth. They would no longer gave justification for having made us slaves and keeping us in the condition we are in. As long as none of stand, they're safe.
Please listen to me, because I would not lie to you now. I speak from my heart. You have the chance of being bigger then anyone who has ever lived on that plantation or come from this little town. You can do it if you try. You have seen how Mr. Farrell makes a slingshot handle. He starts with just a little piece of rough wood- any little piece of scrap wood- then he starts cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting, then shaving. Shaves it down clean and smooth till it's not what it was before, but something new and pretty. You know what I'm talking about, because you have seen him do it. You had one that he made from a piece of scrap wood. Yes, yes - I saw you with it. And it came from a piece of old wood that he found in the yard somewhere. And that's all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. until we - each of us, individually- decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.
A hero is someone who something for other people. He does something that other men don't and can't do. He is different from other men. He is above other men. No matter who those other men are, the hero, no matter who he is, is above them.
"Do you know what a myth is, Jefferson?" I asked him. "A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better then anyone else on earth -and that's a myth. The last thing they ever want is to see a black man stand, and think, and show that common humanity that is in us all. It would destroy their myth. They would no longer gave justification for having made us slaves and keeping us in the condition we are in. As long as none of stand, they're safe.
Please listen to me, because I would not lie to you now. I speak from my heart. You have the chance of being bigger then anyone who has ever lived on that plantation or come from this little town. You can do it if you try. You have seen how Mr. Farrell makes a slingshot handle. He starts with just a little piece of rough wood- any little piece of scrap wood- then he starts cutting. Cutting and cutting and cutting, then shaving. Shaves it down clean and smooth till it's not what it was before, but something new and pretty. You know what I'm talking about, because you have seen him do it. You had one that he made from a piece of scrap wood. Yes, yes - I saw you with it. And it came from a piece of old wood that he found in the yard somewhere. And that's all we are Jefferson, all of us on this earth, a piece of drifting wood. until we - each of us, individually- decide to become something else. I am still that piece of drifting wood, and those out there are no better. But you can be better.
January 26, 2024
4.5 stars — I didn't quite know how I felt about this for most of the read.
Picking it up in brief and impatient spurts throughout the busy holiday season probably didn't help any. Then it got swept to the side by Christmas Movies and work stress and holiday travels and everything else. For a brief period of time, I even resented it as a reminder of the shame I felt over not completing my (already pathetically modest) GR Reading Challenge Goal for last year. A silly feeling, I know, but no less persistent or real.
Fast-forward to mid-January and I'm sitting on a beautiful beach in Costa Rica with my sister and parents, awkwardly choking back sobs as I reached its emotionally devastating final pages. (Of course I'd take a novel about systemic racism and the death penalty with me on vacation for a little "light" beach reading).
Wiping away tears and sighing deeply as I closed the book and sat in thoughtful silence for several minutes, I realized the book and its characters had grown to mean much more to me than I'd suspected.
Love when a book sneaks up on me like that. And if the bittersweet memory of crying at the beach doesn’t deserve five stars or close to it, I don't know what does.
Picking it up in brief and impatient spurts throughout the busy holiday season probably didn't help any. Then it got swept to the side by Christmas Movies and work stress and holiday travels and everything else. For a brief period of time, I even resented it as a reminder of the shame I felt over not completing my (already pathetically modest) GR Reading Challenge Goal for last year. A silly feeling, I know, but no less persistent or real.
Fast-forward to mid-January and I'm sitting on a beautiful beach in Costa Rica with my sister and parents, awkwardly choking back sobs as I reached its emotionally devastating final pages. (Of course I'd take a novel about systemic racism and the death penalty with me on vacation for a little "light" beach reading).
Wiping away tears and sighing deeply as I closed the book and sat in thoughtful silence for several minutes, I realized the book and its characters had grown to mean much more to me than I'd suspected.
Love when a book sneaks up on me like that. And if the bittersweet memory of crying at the beach doesn’t deserve five stars or close to it, I don't know what does.
June 22, 2021
“I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be.”
⇢The Plot
So I read this book for school, and quite honestly, I would never in a million years have read this if it hadn’t been required reading, but surprisingly I enjoyed a lot about this book. Books where a main character is set up to die right from the start aren’t my thing, but I think the author did a fantastic job of showing Jefferson’s (the character who was unjustly placed on death row) journey and how it impacted his community. It also discussed racism and prejudice in such a thought-provoking way and from so many different perspectives, which I definitely think more people need to see.
Another reason I was hesitant about this one is because I try to stay away from books written by men. Too often there are unnecessary descriptions of women that rub me the wrong way, and this book did fall prey to that unfortunately, but overall I really appreciated how this book portrayed the women in the community and around Grant. Obviously, their dynamic was different than it would be today because this book discusses racism and the characters are living in a society where black people are constantly faced with it, and that was even worse for the women because of misogyny, but I really appreciated that in many ways this book demonstrated how the women like Miss Emma were the backbone of the entire movement to help Jefferson die as a man. Without them, this book could never have taken place, and the author never tried to hide that.
The other side of this is Vivian, who played into this trope I really hate, the “woman exists solely to further the man’s arc” trope. We see it all too often, and I think that I’m disappointed that it happened here because Vivian had the potential to do so much more as another educated person. However, I still liked her character and she definitely added depth to Grant’s character.
⇢The Characters
This book had the characters set up in a way I initially thought was weird, because at a glance you’d think that the main character should be the person on death row who is the most dynamic character (look at me using terms from English class), but it’s actually Grant, who is essentially tasked with helping Jefferson die “as a man” because Grant is the most educated in the community. It took me a really long time to warm up to Grant if I’m being honest because at first, I found his negativity draining and in many instances completely unmerited, but the great part about this book is that as you get more information, you start to understand why characters are the way they are. In the book, Grant has a great scene where he explains how this difficult task makes him feel, and he struggles with going against what his education taught him time and time again, and those scenes were really the reason why my perspective of him completely changed. He definitely wasn’t a perfect person, and there are issues I had with his character that I won’t discuss because I think they’re more related to the author’s morals, but Grant was sort of caught between two worlds and it became easier to empathize with that as you keep reading.
“How do people come up with a date and a time to take life from another man? Who made them God?”
Another character I want to talk about is the Reverend, Reverend Ambrose. I think he was intended to be a character that you don’t particularly like or dislike, but I have to say that I really hated him. I also understand his perspective (which is a statement that can coexist with my previous one), but overall I think his and my opinions are just too different for me to appreciate his character. This is part of the reason why I like Grant, but I value education before faith, and comfort before faith, and as much as the Reverend helped the community through prayer, he limited them in so many other ways. I know he wasn’t actively encouraging them to not become educated and whatnot, but I feel like the way he wanted the community to act wasn’t ever going to get them anywhere. I think older people might be more partial to what he was doing simply because back then you weren’t taught to question what you believe in, and they would understand that, but as someone born in the years where technology really started to shape society, I can’t help but question what I’m taught.
Finally, I want to quickly talk about Jefferson. We didn’t see as much of him as I had predicted, but what we did see was incredible. I really enjoyed seeing his journey and I was so proud of his arc. And reading chapter 29 with his notebook letter to Grant was so moving.
“good by mr wigin tell them im strong tell them im a man good by mr wigin im gon ax paul if he can bring you this sincely jefferson”
⇢Overall
There were plenty of things I enjoyed about this book and some things I didn’t, but this was a great book and I’m glad that my teacher included this book in the course!
. ⋅ ˚̣- : ✧ : – ⭒ ❦ ⭒ – : ✧ : -˚̣⋅ .
MY SPOTIFY ❦
MY LINKTREE ❦
September 23, 2007
I still think about this book, even after reading it months ago. It’s a very simple story about two African-American men in 1940s Louisiana; one is a teacher and the other is a uneducated man waiting to be executed for a murder he witnessed, but didn’t commit. Both of them have given up hope for their lives, and for humanity in general. They live by the rules of the white majority, and both face a bleak future that’s beyond their ability to change. They are forced to spend time together, and eventually, they end up teaching each other how noble they are, and how precious life is. I won't lie; it's a very sad book, so you should read it with a box of Kleenex nearby. But it's not tragic. There's a great message that you'll carry away from it.
I still believe that To Kill a Mockingbird is the best American novel, but A Lesson Before Dying now ranks in my top three. So read it, and not just because it’s a profound examination of racial, gender, and religious issues. Read it as an appreciation of what the human soul can achieve, even in the smallest spaces. If you get to the line, “Tell Nannan I walked” and you don’t get choked up, you should check your pulse.
I still believe that To Kill a Mockingbird is the best American novel, but A Lesson Before Dying now ranks in my top three. So read it, and not just because it’s a profound examination of racial, gender, and religious issues. Read it as an appreciation of what the human soul can achieve, even in the smallest spaces. If you get to the line, “Tell Nannan I walked” and you don’t get choked up, you should check your pulse.
August 13, 2011
Ernest J. Gaines' 'A Lesson Before Dying' is a tedious read that has a good story, but ultimately falls flat mainly because of shallow characters and flat writing.
However, if you are looking for a short, quick-read novel about African-Americans and whites during racial segregation in the style of 'To Kill a Mockingbird', this might be your cup of tea. But ultimately, there is nothing enlightening, heart-wrenching, or poignant about this novel. Many of the issues lay within the main character, Grant Wiggins, a bitter school teacher who complains about being in his 'stifling' Louisiana town, complains and berates family members and students, yet ultimately doesn't do anything about his situation regardless of what he says or does. I have never encountered a character more bitter, cold, or just plain selfish than Grant Wiggins. Nothing ever seems to please him, and everyone seems to be at the sword's end with Grant - from his aunt and her friends, to his pupils, and even sometimes his girlfriend.
While the book is supposed to be about Jefferson, a young black male sentenced to death, there are actually few moments when the reader encounters Jefferson - most of the time, it's just Grant, and what he doesn't like, and how his Aunt and her friend are looking at him, how he wants to leave but doesn't leave, how he acts 'smart' with the whites and they don't like it, so on and so forth. There is so much conflict and anger that rolls off the pages whenever Grant is narrating it becomes tiresome and boring. This is not a page turner, and it takes several chapters to get into the actual story. The characters, other than Grant, are not very memorable and lack depth and clarity - they seem to be simply the dumb marionettes while Grant is the smart and superior, albeit angry, craftsman.
Mr. Gaines' writing also does not help to make this book even somewhat-passable by any standards. It seems almost dull, bored, and disinterested - as if he wasn't really invested in the writing from the start. The beginning of the book gives you hope, but after that, it all falls downhill from there and picks up too late, only until the absolute end. Thus, the writing leaves an empty hole in the center of what should be a fiery sea of emotion and personal connection.
Basically, 'A Lesson Before Dying' is a diamond that was never completely polished. It never really made a personal connection with me, and was such a difficult and disappointing read for me, and even today, it still fails to touch the part of me that will leave you thoughtful for the rest of the day, and many to come.
However, if you are looking for a short, quick-read novel about African-Americans and whites during racial segregation in the style of 'To Kill a Mockingbird', this might be your cup of tea. But ultimately, there is nothing enlightening, heart-wrenching, or poignant about this novel. Many of the issues lay within the main character, Grant Wiggins, a bitter school teacher who complains about being in his 'stifling' Louisiana town, complains and berates family members and students, yet ultimately doesn't do anything about his situation regardless of what he says or does. I have never encountered a character more bitter, cold, or just plain selfish than Grant Wiggins. Nothing ever seems to please him, and everyone seems to be at the sword's end with Grant - from his aunt and her friends, to his pupils, and even sometimes his girlfriend.
While the book is supposed to be about Jefferson, a young black male sentenced to death, there are actually few moments when the reader encounters Jefferson - most of the time, it's just Grant, and what he doesn't like, and how his Aunt and her friend are looking at him, how he wants to leave but doesn't leave, how he acts 'smart' with the whites and they don't like it, so on and so forth. There is so much conflict and anger that rolls off the pages whenever Grant is narrating it becomes tiresome and boring. This is not a page turner, and it takes several chapters to get into the actual story. The characters, other than Grant, are not very memorable and lack depth and clarity - they seem to be simply the dumb marionettes while Grant is the smart and superior, albeit angry, craftsman.
Mr. Gaines' writing also does not help to make this book even somewhat-passable by any standards. It seems almost dull, bored, and disinterested - as if he wasn't really invested in the writing from the start. The beginning of the book gives you hope, but after that, it all falls downhill from there and picks up too late, only until the absolute end. Thus, the writing leaves an empty hole in the center of what should be a fiery sea of emotion and personal connection.
Basically, 'A Lesson Before Dying' is a diamond that was never completely polished. It never really made a personal connection with me, and was such a difficult and disappointing read for me, and even today, it still fails to touch the part of me that will leave you thoughtful for the rest of the day, and many to come.
June 25, 2016
A tale of Jefferson, a poor black man in Louisiana in the late 40's, sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit, and the teacher, Grant Wiggins, who is asked to help him somehow to become more of a man before he dies. Grant has little faith in his value as a teacher to elementary kids facing an unjust and impoverished life or belief in any afterlife. But he comes to identify with Jefferson and his need to achieve a sense of his own self-dignity, and this task becomes part of his own quest. The prose is rich and elegant in its spareness and the story never settles into melodrama.
February 8, 2022
Heartache and pain and racist injustice all the way through. But hope and love and redemption, too. A little human kindness sprinkled with hope in the end. Tears in my eyes and deep down in my heart also. What a beautiful and incredible book.
July 5, 2020
Protagonist Grant Wiggins is a schoolteacher of poor black children at a church in a small town in Louisiana in 1947. As the story opens, his aunt and her friend, Miss Emma, are attending the trial of Miss Emma’s grandson, Jefferson, for murder. Jefferson was in the wrong place at the wrong time and did not kill the white proprietor, but due to the deep racism of the time and place, the jury presumes he is guilty. He is sentenced to death. Miss Emma asks Grant to visit Jefferson in jail to help him feel a sense of self-respect before he dies.
The story shows the struggles of the black community living in the era of Jim Crow laws and segregation. It brings them to a personal level, showing how difficult it is to live with dignity in the shadow of racism. And of course, this is a lesson our society is still learning. It is easy for the reader to empathize with Grant and Jefferson and develop a sense of outrage at the injustices they face. Grant has no desire to attempt to “teach” moral knowledge, but he does it out of courtesy to his aunt and Miss Emma, and initially there is little response from Jefferson. In the end, they both learn “a lesson before dying.”
Themes include bigotry, poverty, education, injustice, social class, religion, and sacrifice. The tone is mostly bleak, but somehow the author ends it with a tiny ray of hope, and this is no small feat considering the subject matter. It is a powerful and emotional story.
The story shows the struggles of the black community living in the era of Jim Crow laws and segregation. It brings them to a personal level, showing how difficult it is to live with dignity in the shadow of racism. And of course, this is a lesson our society is still learning. It is easy for the reader to empathize with Grant and Jefferson and develop a sense of outrage at the injustices they face. Grant has no desire to attempt to “teach” moral knowledge, but he does it out of courtesy to his aunt and Miss Emma, and initially there is little response from Jefferson. In the end, they both learn “a lesson before dying.”
Themes include bigotry, poverty, education, injustice, social class, religion, and sacrifice. The tone is mostly bleak, but somehow the author ends it with a tiny ray of hope, and this is no small feat considering the subject matter. It is a powerful and emotional story.
February 4, 2014
This is an exceptional book. My Gosh....I might consider reading it again myself. (I had just noticed a GR's friend is currently reading it).
August 17, 2016
Another wonderful read by Gaines. This is heavy on the heart. The question comes to mind, "who was the teacher?" Lots of role reversals in this one. Gaines is an author to be trusted, he knows exactly how to handle his reading audience. He sure can stir the emotions but he also stirs the mind.
April 27, 2018
A young, poorly educated black man – Jefferson - is sentenced to death despite being innocently present in a failed robbery when two black robbers and one white shopkeeper killed each other. The defending attorney tries to prevent the death sentence by saying it would be more like executing a hog than a civilised human being. As a result Jefferson’s elderly churchgoing grandmother and her friend, the narrator Grant’s Aunt, decide that the narrator – a teacher in the local school – have to teach him to be a man before he dies. In addition the local preacher also visits Jefferson – to try and save his soul. The teacher is in some ways the only educated person (black or white) in the story – but in some ways the least educated due to his lack of faith or real inner happiness or peace.
The book’s theme is clearly meant to be the racial divide in America – and in particular the vicious cycle the black community in the old plantation areas has been in ever since slavery – where the men either; stay, are broken and conform to the lowly role the whites expect of them; run-away and often meet a violent end; or become educated in which case the only way the feel able to break away is to leave the area.
For me this part was rather forced with lots of racial stereotypes (e.g. the whites are all old fashioned redneck’s with one token exception) but the book did show up a community with a huge lack of integration – the whites still expect the blacks to call them sir, segregation is still strictly in force and the mixed races delight in looking down on the blacks. It also showed the evil perpetuated by the death penalty.
Book is sad and moving in some ways but not in the end a good piece of literature as too clichéd and predictable.
The book’s theme is clearly meant to be the racial divide in America – and in particular the vicious cycle the black community in the old plantation areas has been in ever since slavery – where the men either; stay, are broken and conform to the lowly role the whites expect of them; run-away and often meet a violent end; or become educated in which case the only way the feel able to break away is to leave the area.
For me this part was rather forced with lots of racial stereotypes (e.g. the whites are all old fashioned redneck’s with one token exception) but the book did show up a community with a huge lack of integration – the whites still expect the blacks to call them sir, segregation is still strictly in force and the mixed races delight in looking down on the blacks. It also showed the evil perpetuated by the death penalty.
Book is sad and moving in some ways but not in the end a good piece of literature as too clichéd and predictable.
August 13, 2015
Jefferson, a simple black laborer, found himself in a liquor store during an armed robbery. The innocent man was in the wrong place when the owner was murdered, and he was convicted of the crime in the late 1940s. The public defender had tried to convince the jury that Jefferson was not intelligent enough to plan the crime. The teacher Grant Wiggins described the trial: "He said it would be like tying a hog down into that chair and executing him--an animal that didn't know what any of it was all about. The jury, twelve white men good and true, still sentenced him to death. Now his godmother wants me to visit him and make him know--prove to these white men--that he's not a hog, that he's a man."
The book shows the prejudice of the Jim Crow Era in the way the black people are treated, especially in the deep South. Even Grant, an educated man, is treated in an inferior manner, having to come in the back door and wait for hours to speak to a white man. But if he moves from his rural Louisiana town to another region of the country, he will have to leave his roots and people he loves.
Jefferson and Grant form a bond during their visits, and Jefferson dies with dignity. He dies as a martyr, a Christ-like figure executed exactly two weeks after Good Friday. A witness said Jefferson was the strongest man in the room. Another injustice served.
The book shows the prejudice of the Jim Crow Era in the way the black people are treated, especially in the deep South. Even Grant, an educated man, is treated in an inferior manner, having to come in the back door and wait for hours to speak to a white man. But if he moves from his rural Louisiana town to another region of the country, he will have to leave his roots and people he loves.
Jefferson and Grant form a bond during their visits, and Jefferson dies with dignity. He dies as a martyr, a Christ-like figure executed exactly two weeks after Good Friday. A witness said Jefferson was the strongest man in the room. Another injustice served.
February 10, 2017
A black man is wrongly accused of a crime he did not commit, and a schoolteacher is given the task of helping him face his punishment like a man. The facts seem simple, but there is so much more to this little book. Through Grant Wiggins, the articulate yet conflicted narrator, Ernest J. Gaines presents the plight of downtrodden African Americans in the South. Yet he also makes the reader confront what it means to be truly human, and to face one's destiny with true courage.
August 21, 2016
This was one of the best books I have ever read.
The book takes place in Louisianna. A black man who was a slave on the cotton farms was wrongly accused of murder and was sentenced to death by the electric chair. The book is about the last few weeks the man has on earth. A black teacher was sent to him each week to convinced him that he was worth something and that he was a man. He convinced him to believe in God and ask for forgivness of his sins. He did so to please his aunt. He walked to the electric chair like a man.
I recommend this book to all readers. It also causes one to do some introspection on his or her own life and beliefs.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
The book takes place in Louisianna. A black man who was a slave on the cotton farms was wrongly accused of murder and was sentenced to death by the electric chair. The book is about the last few weeks the man has on earth. A black teacher was sent to him each week to convinced him that he was worth something and that he was a man. He convinced him to believe in God and ask for forgivness of his sins. He did so to please his aunt. He walked to the electric chair like a man.
I recommend this book to all readers. It also causes one to do some introspection on his or her own life and beliefs.
Enjoy and Be Blessed.
Diamond
December 11, 2014
This may be the most heart breaking book it has ever been my sad pleasure to read. A young man is in the wrong place at the wrong time, and due to his poor decision making on this one ill fated occasion, ends up wrongfully accused of murder and condemned to death row. Set during a time when race relations were strained and tilted heavily in favor of privileged whites at the expense of struggling blacks who were looked down upon (in other words, a time much worse and yet insufficiently different from today), the best that his lawyer can think up as a defense is to compare the defendant to a dumb hog. When this fails to prevent Jefferson from being convicted and sentenced to the electric chair, his godmother calls upon local grade school teacher Grant Wiggins. What she asks of Grant is both simple and seemingly impossible. Jefferson cannot escape an unfair verdict in an unjust world. But instead of pitifully accepting designation as a brute animal, maybe he can find a measure of dignity in his final days, allowing him to take his final steps with head held high like a man. Grant is a cynic and less than a true believer in what we're taught about God and an awaiting Heaven. It takes the bullying of his aunt to make him accept the ultimate teaching assignment. He does his best. Jefferson does his best. Readers may do their best in the end not to cry. Many will surely fail.
February 27, 2013
Someday I will die. That I am sure of. But I do not think about it, at least, not consciously. I wouldn't want to think that a time will come when light, breath, and little breezes are things I will not experience. And never again see that little, oh, so beautiful smile in her eyes. But it will come, all the same. When? Tomorrow? Next year? Fifty, a hundred... well maybe say seventy years at the most.
That was a passing thought. Sad it was caught on record.
Well, think of a man who knows that he shall soon die. And the date is set. He counts the days, and in his solitary confinement has to deal with the ever present fact that the clock is still ticking, closer to the appointed day. The day he will meet his death, in an electric chair. This knowledge, the thoughts it inspires, is more torture than anything I can imagine.
Take this man. Be him for a second. And remember that you are innocent of the charge against you. And helpless. Utterly helpless. (sob, sob.)
His name, your adopted name for the second, is Jefferson.
He is at the wrong place when a crime happens, and being the sole survivor of a liquor store robbery he is arrested and convicted of murder. Bring in Mr. Wiggins, a teacher whom the community expects so much from, and ask him to teach this man a lesson before, well....
His narrative voice, sad but deepened by wisdom as it is sharpened by doubt and pain, is like seating by a fire and listening to an old man whose tranquility exudes and soothes.
Now,
I want to listen to a sad song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnL1e4...
Totally unrelated, by the way. Just sad.
Why is it that I had not heard of Ernest J. Gaines before reading this book? I have such an affinity for African-American fiction, some books of which, like Beloved, are a treasure. This author clearly meant business here. And this book is worth every minutes you spend with it.
That was a passing thought. Sad it was caught on record.
Well, think of a man who knows that he shall soon die. And the date is set. He counts the days, and in his solitary confinement has to deal with the ever present fact that the clock is still ticking, closer to the appointed day. The day he will meet his death, in an electric chair. This knowledge, the thoughts it inspires, is more torture than anything I can imagine.
Take this man. Be him for a second. And remember that you are innocent of the charge against you. And helpless. Utterly helpless. (sob, sob.)
His name, your adopted name for the second, is Jefferson.
He is at the wrong place when a crime happens, and being the sole survivor of a liquor store robbery he is arrested and convicted of murder. Bring in Mr. Wiggins, a teacher whom the community expects so much from, and ask him to teach this man a lesson before, well....
His narrative voice, sad but deepened by wisdom as it is sharpened by doubt and pain, is like seating by a fire and listening to an old man whose tranquility exudes and soothes.
Now,
I want to listen to a sad song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnL1e4...
Totally unrelated, by the way. Just sad.
Why is it that I had not heard of Ernest J. Gaines before reading this book? I have such an affinity for African-American fiction, some books of which, like Beloved, are a treasure. This author clearly meant business here. And this book is worth every minutes you spend with it.
February 20, 2017
I did not want the month of February to go by without reading at least one book by a black author. Wow, am I grateful that my library had this title on display. A book I've meant to read for a long time and now I know why. What an emotional wallop.
From the opening pages where a public defender "defends" a black man by comparing him to no more than a hog, to the powerful closing pages of Jefferson's jailhouse diary, I was caught in 1940's Louisiana and the injustice of a racist society.
What is to stand like a man? This ageless, timeless question dominates the novel. It's a question without an easy answer and Gaines' characters stumble through humbly, defiantly, confusedly, longingly. What drives the pace and momentum is the execution date. Will Grant Wiggens be able to convince Jefferson (or himself) that he is a man? That it even matters?
I loved everything about the questions asked, the questions answered, the writing and setting and characters. It all made me incredibly sad, but even that was satisfying. Gaines never wastes a word in telling this story and all I want is more.
Read Alikes:
To Kill a Mockingbird (I don't make this comparison lightly, A Lesson Before Dying is every bit as powerful a novel.)
Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account Of The Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate
From the opening pages where a public defender "defends" a black man by comparing him to no more than a hog, to the powerful closing pages of Jefferson's jailhouse diary, I was caught in 1940's Louisiana and the injustice of a racist society.
What is to stand like a man? This ageless, timeless question dominates the novel. It's a question without an easy answer and Gaines' characters stumble through humbly, defiantly, confusedly, longingly. What drives the pace and momentum is the execution date. Will Grant Wiggens be able to convince Jefferson (or himself) that he is a man? That it even matters?
I loved everything about the questions asked, the questions answered, the writing and setting and characters. It all made me incredibly sad, but even that was satisfying. Gaines never wastes a word in telling this story and all I want is more.
Read Alikes:
To Kill a Mockingbird (I don't make this comparison lightly, A Lesson Before Dying is every bit as powerful a novel.)
Dead Man Walking: The Eyewitness Account Of The Death Penalty That Sparked a National Debate
July 2, 2009
This book was okay.
I felt like the author could have done a better job of making interesting characters with multiple dimensions. The only two characters that were even attempted to be portrayed as interesting, evolving people were the two main characters. Everyone else was essentially static representations of a particular caricature (i.e. the girlfriend who represents everything good, the grandma who represents piety, the sheriff who represents bigotry, etc, etc). And even the two characters who were supposed to be "interesting" I found to be not very suprising or believable. I didn't feel like I knew or had a connection with either of them. In fact, I found the main character to be somewhat arrogant. Plus, I felt like the book didn't have any nuanced themes other than the "racism is bad" one that is hammered home. I was expecting much more from this book.
I felt like the author could have done a better job of making interesting characters with multiple dimensions. The only two characters that were even attempted to be portrayed as interesting, evolving people were the two main characters. Everyone else was essentially static representations of a particular caricature (i.e. the girlfriend who represents everything good, the grandma who represents piety, the sheriff who represents bigotry, etc, etc). And even the two characters who were supposed to be "interesting" I found to be not very suprising or believable. I didn't feel like I knew or had a connection with either of them. In fact, I found the main character to be somewhat arrogant. Plus, I felt like the book didn't have any nuanced themes other than the "racism is bad" one that is hammered home. I was expecting much more from this book.
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