Beautiful in its simplicity, powerful in its effect. This book, often read in high school to elicit discussion on topics such as social justice, becomes more powerful with time and maturity. Reminiscent of Hemingway's prose, each word is carefully chosen.

A classic. I read this when I was younger but didn't get it back then. I'm so glad I returned to this book. Ernest J. Gaines wrote a simple, yet powerful novel about America's biggest sin - slavery and its legacy. Jefferson happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time - in a drugstore where the white owner was killed and attacked by two black men who ended up dead too. It is the late 40s Louisiana, slavery has been officially abolished, but people still have close memories of slavery. Segregation and racism are rife and visible (the Confederate flag flying in front of official government buildings, segregated toilets, segregated schools...). Jefferson's lawyer tries to defend him by comparing him to a hog who couldn't possibly orchestrate such a crime. The white jury convicts Jefferson and he receives the death sentence ("the electric chair"). His aunt (primary caregiver) is completely devastated and broken by the verdict. Her only wish is that her nephew meets his death not as a hog, but as a man. The protagonist of the book is a school teacher, Grant Wiggins, whose aunt is the best friend of Jefferson's aunt. Grant's aunt wants him to help Jefferson. Grant doesn't know what to do. However, despite his anger, he meets up with Jefferson and this journey is the main focus of this book. It is a well written book. The language is concise, yet delves so deep. Grant's reflections on why African American men have an innate need to run away was incredibly well written. The overall story was depressing and yet Gaines managed to give us a hopeful ending. Even though I didn't get this when I was younger, but I think it's an important book to read for American students and Americans in general. I definitely want to read more of Ernest J. Gaines' works now.

"Let me explain it to you, let me see if I can explain it to you. [...] We black men have failed to protect our women since the time of slavery. We stay here in the South and are broken, or we run away and leave them alone to look after the children and themselves. So each time a male child is born, they hope he will be the one to change this vicious circle - which he never does. Because even though he wants to change it, and maybe even tried to change it, it is too heavy a burden because of all the others who have run away and left their burden behind. So he, too, must run away if he is to hold on to his sanity and have a life of his own. I can see by your face you don't agree, so I'll try again. What she wants is for him, Jefferson, and me to change everything that has been going on for three hundred years. She wants it to happen so in case she ever gets out of her bed again, she can go to that little church there in the quarter and say proudly, 'You see, I told you - I told you he was a man.' And if she dies an hour after that, all right; but what she wants to hear first is that he did not crawl to that white man, that he stood at that last moment and walked. Because if he does not, she knows that she will never get another chance to see a black man stand for her."

I wavered between three and four stars because this book was a slow starter, ponderous for the first half to two thirds of the story. The last section made up for that, though, so it's going to be four stars in the final analysis.

Grant, the main character, is an African-American schoolteacher in Jim Crow 1940s Louisiana. Grant lives with his aunt and feels frustrated and stifled in his job, in no small part because of the uphill battle he must fight just for chalk. The one bright spot in his life is Vivian, the almost-divorced love of his life. Grant is angry and resentful when his aunt insists that he begin visiting Jefferson, her friend's godson, languishing in prison and unfairly sentenced to death. Jefferson's godmother wants Grant to teach Jefferson how to die like a man, in contrast to Jefferson's lawyer's defense of Jefferson as being a dumb and therefore blameless animal.

Part of the book's slowness may be attributed to the very realistic and authentic depiction of Jefferson's reluctance to bond with Grant combined with Grant's ambivalence and confusion about how to go about this task. The breakthrough, when it comes, manages to be both profound and believable as do Grant and Jefferson's interactions for the remainder of the book. Kudos to Ernest Gaines for creating dialogue that was moving and touching without feeling at all contrived. I guess it's typical of me to bring this back to psychology, but Grant and Jefferson's relationship was highly reminiscent of the interaction between a therapist and a reluctant client which made it particularly interesting to me.

This book also affirmed my cynical attitude toward The Help. Oh, please. Not that I can say this with any authority, but for what it's worth this book felt like a far more authentic depiction of the African American experience than the vanilla-flavored The Help. It wasn't as easy to read or as entertaining, but there's no comparison if we're going for quality and verisimilitude.

Definitely worth reading.

This book was okay.

I felt like the author could have done a better job of making interesting characters with multiple dimensions. The only two characters that were even attempted to be portrayed as interesting, evolving people were the two main characters. Everyone else was essentially static representations of a particular caricature (i.e. the girlfriend who represents everything good, the grandma who represents piety, the sheriff who represents bigotry, etc, etc). And even the two characters who were supposed to be "interesting" I found to be not very suprising or believable. I didn't feel like I knew or had a connection with either of them. In fact, I found the main character to be somewhat arrogant. Plus, I felt like the book didn't have any nuanced themes other than the "racism is bad" one that is hammered home. I was expecting much more from this book.

''Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person. Justice?''
Occasionally you read a book and think to yourself, why didn't I read this years ago?
A Lesson Before Dying is one of those books. On the surface it's about a miscarrage of justice, but it's about so much more than that. It's about race relations, redemption and salvation. It's a stunning and powerful book that left me utterly gobsmacked. It's rare to read a book and feel a better human being at the end of it. I salute Ernest J. Gaines for doing that.

This account of a school teacher's attempt to bring dignity to the last days of a condemned man in 1940's Louisiana is moving but still somehow disappointing. Shortened, it would have made a fine novella.

(Review taken from National Endowment for the Arts' website. --SR)

Ernest J. Gaines's A Lesson Before Dying (1993) poses one of the most universal questions literature can ask: Knowing we're going to die, how should we live? It's the story of an uneducated young black man named Jefferson, accused of the murder of a white storekeeper, and Grant Wiggins, a college-educated native son of Louisiana, who teaches at a plantation school. In a little more than 250 pages, these two men named for presidents discover a friendship that transforms at least two lives.

In the first chapter, the court-appointed lawyer's idea of a legal strategy for Jefferson is to argue, "Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this." This dehumanizing and unsurprisingly doomed defense rankles the condemned man's grief-stricken godmother, Miss Emma, and Grant's aunt, Tante Lou. They convince an unwilling Grant to spend time with Jefferson in his prison cell, so that he might confront death with his head held high.

Most of the novel's violence happens offstage in the first and last chapters. Vital secondary characters punctuate the narrative, including Vivian, Grant's assertive yet patient Creole girlfriend; Reverend Ambrose, a minister whom the disbelieving Grant ultimately comes to respect; and Paul, a white deputy who stands with Jefferson when Grant cannot.

White, black, mulatto, Cajun, or Creole; rich, poor, or hanging on; young, old, or running out of time-around all these people, Gaines crafts a story of intimacy and depth. He re-creates the smells of Miss Emma's fried chicken, the sounds of the blues from Jefferson's radio, the taste of the sugarcane from the plantation. The school, the parish church, the town bar, and the jailhouse all come alive with indelible vividness.

In the tradition of Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (1961) and Truman Capote's In Cold Blood (1966), Gaines uses a capital case to explore the nobility and the barbarism of which human beings are equally capable. The story builds inexorably to Jefferson's ultimate bid for dignity, both in his prison diary and at the hour of his execution. That Ernest J. Gaines wrings a hopeful ending out of such grim material only testifies to his prodigious gifts as a storyteller.

The setting of this book is the 1940’s on a Louisiana plantation. A white man was shot and killed, and Jefferson, a young black man, was present at the crime, but didn’t do it. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nonetheless, he was sentenced by an all white jury to die in the electric chair. On the witness stand, Jefferson was dehumanized and called a hog.

Grant is one of the school teachers for the black students on the plantation. After graduation from University he struggled to decide if he should leave or go to another state but the plantation had been his only home and he was in love with another schoolteacher.

Jefferson’s godmother and Grant’s aunt persuade Grant to visit Jefferson in jail to try and instill some pride in him and help him know he is a man, not an animal. Grant struggled with this decision because he had lost his faith and struggling with his pride as well.

This book flows smoothly and is very easy to read, but is very emotional. One of the hardest things to deal with in the book is the humiliation and treatment of black people. Both of these men do learn lessons in self-worth and pride from each other. I don’t think white people can every truly understand the experience of degradation of black people as much as we want to.

I dare you to read this and not be moved.

Jefferson, a poor, uneducated twenty-one-year-old Black was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time--in a small-town liquor store outside of Bayonne, Louisiana. It is the 1940s. Three men are killed. He is the only survivor. He is “tried”, convicted and sentenced to the electric chair.

His “nannan” has one request. She asks that Grant Wiggins, a teacher at the church school, be allowed to speak to him. Let him die not as a “hog” but as a man. Those are her words, not mine. Will Grant succeed, or won’t he? That Jefferson is to die, is not up for question.

This is a book that is about dignity and strength.

It is about racial prejudice and discrimination in the South.

It is about real kindness, by that I mean giving not what you want to give but what another needs.

It is about education and what it has to achieve, its purpose.

It is about faith and religion. I believe it will satisfy both those with and without religious beliefs.

And more--about what keeps a person alive, about last requests and about the inhumanity of the death sentence.

That is an awful lot for such a short book. In my view the author does succeed with all these topics masterfully. The characters’ words and actions are well chosen, making the tale succinct and powerful.

Th audiobook narration is executed by Lionel Mark Smith and Roger Guenveur Smith. I had some trouble understanding specific words in the beginning. Was the word I was hearing, “hog”, what I was supposed to be hearing?! Then it cleared for me; yes, it was! The black, Southern dialect is strong, and it should be. The tempo is perfect. The narration is remarkably well done, so this I have given five stars.

In my view, this is Ernest J. Gaines best book.
*A Lesson before Dying 4 stars
*Catherine Carmier 3 stars
*The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman 1 star

Jesus christ this was the worst book ever. Classic my ass I think I was interested in all of about 8 pages near the verryyy end and that was because it was finally ending. The characters sucked and had nothing special about them and everything else was just dull

Ok so honestly, I wasn’t expecting to like this book very much since I had to read it for english class. HOWEVER. This book TOTALLY EXCEEDED my expectations! Honestly I was hooked after Chapter 2. It really dives into the 1940s lifestyle, being falsely accused for a murder you didn’t do as a black man, and it really just portrayed the Southern society so well. Please be warned that are racial slurs in this book, so please note that ahead of time. The writing of the book was absolutely brilliant, and there were many moments when chapters ended that I just sat and starting thinking. It was a really good reflection book, and the characters were very well thought out. I totally recommend this book if you are into classics, and even if you aren’t, I say give it a try, because you honestly might be surprised!!

Jefferson, a young black man, is witness to a robbery and killing that he did not commit but because he was at the scene he was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, a young black man who grew up in the same small town, has been away at University and returns to his hometown to teach. His Aunt is friends with Miss Emma, who is Jefferson's nannan. They convince Grant to spend time with Jefferson while he awaits execution in the hopes he will teach him how to be a man. Grant wants nothing more than to leave this small town and set up life elsewhere but he struggles to make sense of his own life and how to escape his circumstances. Slavery and racism are the order of the day, segregation as strong as ever. Life in a small Cajun town in Louisiana during the 1940s is suffocating if you live on the wrong side of the railroad tracks. This story is riveting and heart wrenching. Gaines goes deep into the psyche of all the characters involved and has turned out a compelling and thought-provoking book. Very moving.