A
Lesson Before Dying
By
Ernest J. Gaines
An
Anstett Book Club Selection
I grew
up in a small town in Illinois with a population of about 6,000. Only one family was black, a couple with 3
children. The daughter was my age, and
she had two younger brothers. They were
a nice respectable family who shopped in the same stores as everyone else, not
at all like blacks were treated in the South.
Even though Frances was a classmate, I don’t recall having any contact
with her, nor did anyone else I knew.
Frances had no close friends that I know of, and she never participated
in any school activities. When the
children reached high school, their parents were wise enough to send them to
school in Chicago were it was more diverse.
I lost contact with the family after that, but hope they found a better
life than the Southern Negro depicted so vividly in this book.
This
book we are now reviewing is about a young black man in the Cajun South of the
forties who is unwittingly involved in the robbery and murder of a white
storekeeper. The other two black men who
were with him at the time and actually did the crime were both killed, and
since he was with them, he was accused of the crime and sent to prison with a
death sentence. Grant Wiggins is a black
schoolteacher who is asked to visit the man in prison by his own aunt and the
prisoner’s godmother. He is reluctant to
become involved because the prisoner has turned into the animal he is accused
of being. Grant goes on many visits to
the prison because of the women, but eventually he realizes how much good he
can do this man by bringing him into a peaceful existence in his last days.
Jefferson
ended up dying for the crime, but when I finished the book, I wondered what
happened to Grant. Did he stay in the
small town with all its prejudice against Negros, or did he leave for a
different life?
This was
an interesting well-written book recommended by Barbara Lechner; Reading such a
book, I realized I grew up not knowing how blacks were treated in the South,
and makes me sorry I couldn’t have been more of a friend to Frances Kennedy.
Dorothy Anstett
