Four novels
Call Number
- FICTION GAIN (CEN)
Publication Information
New York, N.Y. : The Library of America, [2024]
Physical Description
828 pages ; 21 cm.
Summary
"Set on and around the Louisiana cotton plantation where he was born in 1933, the novels and stories of Ernest J. Gaines conjure a world alive with the rich traditions of oral storytelling. Generous, compassionate, and deeply moving, they portray women and men caught in the vortex of race in America, struggling in hope toward hard-won moments of justice and unity. Gaines joins the Library of America with this volume gathering his four greatest novels. The Pulitzer Prize–nominated The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), adapted for television in an Emmy Award–winning film starring Cicely Tyson, traces the long life of a woman born into slavery who bears witness to the Civil War, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the civil rights movement. One of the most indelible and inspiring characters in American fiction, Miss Jane is a living testament to the history, hopes, courage, and persistence of her people. In My Father’s House (1978) is the story of Reverend Phillip Martin, an activist minister who is planning a civil rights protest in the small town of St. Adrienne. When a young stranger suddenly appears on the scene, Martin must weigh the good he hopes to accomplish against the revelation of the secret sins of his past. In A Gathering of Old Men (1983), a white Cajun farmer is shot in the front yard of Mathu, an elderly Black man. When Mathu and seventeen other old Black men all confess to the murder, they set in motion a confrontation with the local police, risking everything to make a principled stand against bigotry and unequal treatment before the law. And in A Lesson Before Dying (1993), winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and an early Oprah’s Book Club selection, a local Black schoolteacher is compelled by his aunt to help a young Black man falsely convicted of murdering a white man face execution with dignity. The volume is rounded out with a chronology of Gaines’s life and career written by his authorized biographer, John Wharton Lowe, and helpful notes."--
"The best black writer in America" (Time) joins the Library of America with a volume collecting 4 landmark novels about race and the legacy of slavery in America. Includes A Lesson Before Dying, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and an early Oprah Book Club selection. Born in 1933, the oldest of twelve children in a family of sharecroppers in Oscar, Louisiana, Ernest J. Gaines wrote novels and stories, set on and around the former slave plantation he called home, that are modern classics--nuanced, compassionate portraits of women and men, both Black and white, caught in the vortex of race in America. He joins the Library of America with this volume gathering his four greatest novels. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), the story of an elderly woman born into slavery who witnesses Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Rights Movement. A living testament to the history, hopes, courage, and survival of her people, Miss Jane is one of the most indelible and unforgettable characters in American fiction. In My Father's House(1978) finds an activist minister organizing a civil rights protest in his town when his estranged son suddenly appears on the scene, threatening to expose his family's secret past. A Gathering of Old Men (1983) sees a group of elderly Black men with nothing left to lose decide to make a last stand against the racism that has defined and delimited their lives. A Lesson Before Dying (1993, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction and an Oprah Book Club selection), in which a local schoolteacher attempts to help a young man falsely convicted of the murder of a white man face execution with dignity. A fitting tribute to a still underappreciated American genius, this volume also includes a chronology of Gaines's life and career written by his authorized biographer, John Wharton Lowe, and helpful notes"--Amazon.com.
Contents
- The autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
- In my father's house
- A gathering of old men
- A lesson before dying.