Gaines’s 1964 novel, Catherine Carmier, explores how characters navigate decisions rooted in their beliefs. Catherine, the daughter of a wealthy Creole, falls in love with Jackson Bradley, a black man torn between his affection for Catherine and his awareness of the world beyond their community.

Continuing the theme of forbidden love, Of Love and Dust is another of Gaines’s works, focusing on the quest for human dignity. Published by Dial in 1967, this second novel depicts the ill-fated romance between a black man and his white employer’s wife.

Many critics regard Gaines’s third novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, as his finest. The narrative chronicles the life of Miss Jane Pittman, beginning during the Civil War and extending into the 1960s. This 1971 novel takes readers on a historical journey through time.

Knopf released Gaines’s fifth novel, A Gathering of Old Men, in 1983. The story centers on the murder of a white Cajun boss on a Louisiana plantation. When a lynch mob arrives to execute the black man they believe is responsible, a group of elderly black men and a young white woman surround the accused, each claiming responsibility for the crime.

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird, published in 1960, intertwines themes of racial prejudice and a child’s perspective on southern small-town life. The novel follows a quiet black man accused of rape, his defender, and a nine-year-old girl who narrates the story.

Albert French’s 1993 novel, Billy, recounts the tragic story of two black boys in the 1930s who, in defending themselves, accidentally commit murder. Ten-year-old Billy is charged, tried as an adult, sentenced to death row, and ultimately executed in the electric chair.