A Lesson Before Dying
Ernest Gaines's novel set in 1940s Louisiana follows a teacher asked to help a wrongly condemned young man face death with dignity.
In 1940s Louisiana, a young Black man named Jefferson is sentenced to die for a murder he did not commit, dismissed in court as no better than an animal. Grant Wiggins, a disillusioned teacher, is pressed by Jefferson’s godmother to visit him in jail and help him meet his execution as a man. Ernest Gaines’s spare, powerful novel is about dignity, injustice, and what people owe one another.
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