A Gathering of Old Men (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Ernest J. Gaines
- First Published: 1983
- Type of Plot: Social realism
- Time of Work: The late 1970’s
- Setting: Louisiana
- Principal Characters: Mathu, Candy Marshall, Cyril Robillard (Clatoo), Robert Louis Stevenson Banks (Chimley), Matthew Lincoln Brown (Mat), Louis Alfred Dimoulin (Lou Dimes), Sheriff Mapes, Fix Boutan, Gilbert Boutan, Charlie Biggs
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, 1970’s, Racism, Blacks, Crime or criminals, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, Social issues, Friendship, Yards or backyards, Ethnic relations, Cajuns, Lynching, Mysteries
- Locales: South (U.S.), Louisiana
The Novel
A Gathering of Old Men is written in the first person and is narrated by fifteen separate voices. The book tells the story of one day, one killing, and the coming-of-age of a community in Louisiana in the 1970’s. Ernest Gaines, a master of first-person storytelling, creates in this work a continuous narrative seen from many very different points of view.
At the opening of the novel, a Cajun boss, Beau Boutan, has been murdered in the Quarters, a section of an old Louisiana plantation. Suspicion naturally falls on Mathu, an elderly African American man...
[The entire page is 2635 words long]
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