Review of A Lesson Before Dying

I picked this book up a few years ago on someone's recommendation. I don't remember who, nor when, nor why. At first, I thought that the book was a true story. I also thought that it was about someone actually getting educated before his death. I was wrong.

The book, written by Ernest J. Gaines, is a novel. It is set in a sugar cane plantation and in a small town in the Cajun country in Louisiana, some time between 1945 and 1957, and deals with issues of race, prejudice, and injustice in this setting. The story is told mostly in the first person, from the point of view of black school teacher Grant Wiggins. The framework of the story is that a young, somewhat slow black man named Jefferson is convicted for a liquor store murder of which he was apparently only an innocent and unwitting witness, and is sentenced to death. His nannan, or godmother Emma, assisted by Grant's aunt Lou, prevails on Grant to go to the jail and try to teach him to be a man before he is executed.

The progress of the story focuses mainly on Grant's personal development, and details his internal struggles and interactions with the other members of the community, both black and white, as he tries to carry on his duties as teacher at the black school, reach out to and impact Jefferson, and wrestle with his own identity and goals.

More later.

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