A Lesson Before Dying (Magill Book Reviews)
At a glance:
- Author: Ernest J. Gaines
- First Published: 1993
- Type of Work: Novel
- Genres: Long fiction, Social realism
- Subjects: African Americans, Civil rights, Teaching or teachers, Prisons, Racism, Blacks, Murder or homicide, South or Southerners, 1940’s, World War II, Capital punishment, Cajuns, Human behavior, Pigs
- Locales: Louisiana
In A LESSON BEFORE DYING, Ernest J. Gaines returns to the southern Louisiana setting he has established in his earlier fiction as his own. The year is 1948. Jefferson, a barely literate young black man, sentenced to death for a shooting in which he was innocently involved, has heard his defense attorney say that executing Jefferson would be like putting a hog in the electric chair. Jefferson has suffered so many outrages to his manhood during his short lifetime that he is altogether too ready to accept his attorney’s assessment.
But Jefferson’s aged godmother resolves...
[The entire page is 814 words long]
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