A Lesson Before Dying
Book - 1993
"This majestic, moving novel is an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives."-- Chicago Tribune
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, A Lesson Before Dying is a deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.
From the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman .
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From Library Staff
From Library Staff
Set in Bayonne, LA (a fictional community Gaines has used previously) in the late 1940s, main character Grant Wiggins visits Jefferson, who is on death row for a crime he was unwittingly involved in.
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Add a SummaryThis novel follows the events after a verdict is handed out to an uneducated black man on shoddy evidence and very slim motives. The implication is that the verdict was racist and the rest of the book explores that theme. During his trial, the man, (Jefferson) is compared to a hog. The rest of the novel is about the development of his character as Grant, a cynical black schoolteacher teaches him that he is just as brave and valuable as any of the white folk. The novel is a heartfelt testimony that centres around the hopelessness of unjust discrimination and a person's self worth.
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Add a CommentRead Jan. 2020. Black man wrongfully given death sentence by white jury and his struggle to be a man, not an animal as the defence lawyer said.
The author of this book, Ernest Gaines, died November 5, 2019, and I decided it was finally time I read this book, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1993.
Altho set in pre-civil-rights era Louisiana of the late 1940s, Gaines wrote and published this book in 1993.
It's heart-breaking book in many ways.
I was particularly affected by all the small, little ways of demonstrating that a person doesn’t matter. Incredibly damaging, event to read about it. I am a white woman, and a black friend visited Las Vegas, auditioning for a job. I gave him a life to the Strip. Stopped at a red light, I heard car door being locked around us. I couldn't believe my ears...! I commented on people using a red light stop to check their doors. Mario told, "Hey, not unusual in my experience..." I could not believe my ears.
It makes me think...
Gaines published this book in 1993.
I think he has a message for us, right now, today.
Have we changed at all? Does it still happen today?
How many of us are 'of good stock?' Do we act like it, or do we have unconscious, in-grained bad behaviors that slip out?
And there are still those of us who are not 'of good stock,' eh?
I enjoyed reading this book by Ernest Gaines because I felt this fictional story gave an accurate portrayal of the criminal justice system and racism against African Americans in the United States during the late 1940s. I found the story compelling, and I enjoyed reading about the hardships and friendships the character Grant Wiggins encounters while trying to mentor another character in the book named Jefferson who is wrongly convicted of a crime and sentenced to death.
For book club on 10/5/2018. Excellent writing, poignant tale of the abusive Southern treatment of blacks in the late 1940s.
Set in Louisiana during the late 1940s, an uneducated black man is unfairly convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The local elementary school teacher, the only educated black man in the community, reluctantly agrees to tutor the unfortunate prisoner so that he can approach death with dignity. Gaines emphasizes the racial inequalities in the tiny community, and draws out a powerful theme about how it can be heroic to defy the unfair expectations put upon you by society. The writing is excellent, but I found the book a bit dull because the outcome is entirely predictable.
A very powerful book regarding African American life in post WW2 US. Thought provoking and informative.
Absolutely phenomenal and beautiful. I finished this book in two days. Extraordinarily simple but nonetheless a moving story of two men living against expectations who try to meet in the middle.
This is an 11th grade curriculum choice in Millard Public Schools.
Although this fictional book takes place in Pre-Civil Rights age Louisiana, people today will relate to the hardships, conflict and inspiration all of the characters experience. It is no wonder this book was an Oprah Book Club selection in the 1990s. Even more important today than it was years ago due to the mass incarceration of African-American males in the United States.