A Lesson Before Dying: A Novel (Audio Theatre Collection) (Serpent's Tail Classics) (Kennebec Large Print Perennial Favorites Collection)

by Ernest J. Gaines and Romulus Linney

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • 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.

"An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune

A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer." —Boston Globe

"Enormously moving.... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." —Los Angeles Times

“A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we've been before to impart a lesson for living.” —San Francisco Chronicle

• ISBN10: 0375702709
• ISBN13: 9780375702709
• Publish Date: 28 September 1997 (first published 23 March 1993)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Vintage Books
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 272
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780375702709

Reviews

[ibeforem]

I was decidedly "meh" about this book. I think it addresses several important issues — the plight of young black men in the early 40s, the state of the justice system at the time, the usefulness of religion — but I think those issues could have been addressed in a better way. The main character, Grant, is not particularly likable. He’s bitter, unmotivated, and at times, just plain mean. In fact, most of the characters in the book are not particularly likable. Most of them appear to be downright miserable. A sign of the times? I don’t know, but you’d think *someone* in the novel would be a joyful person. Jefferson, the imprisoned man, is an interesting character, but even his turn-around is a little anti-climatic. With the build-up of the novel and the title and the praise and all, I expected much more of an epiphany at the end. For me, the pay-off just wasn’t there. If I hadn’t been reading this for my book club, I wouldn’t have finished it.