A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines Review

A Lesson Before Dying takes place in the late 1940s in segregated Bayonne, Louisiana. This is where we meet the semi illiterate Jefferson, a black man convicted and sentenced to death by an all white jury for murdering a white liquor store owner. Even though Jefferson swears he is innocent and was at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people, he is still condemned to death and labeled nothing more than a hog. Mortified by the conviction and how Jefferson was described as an animal Miss Emma, Jefferson’s godmother with the assistance of Tante Lou, a friend of hers tasks Grant Wiggins, Tante Lou nephew and school teacher to turn Jefferson into a dignified man.

         Gaines managed to keep my interest throughout this book by constantly having the reader wonder how Grant would transform Jefferson. When Grant first meets Jefferson, it seems like a lost cause. Jefferson was in a state of shock and self deprecation. I just didn’t see how at the end of the book Grant would manage to turn him around especially when Grant was facing his own inner turmoil and battle. For one, Grant was unwilling to even speak with Jefferson, he was basically forced by his aunt. Throughout the book Grant is constantly questioning everything around him as he is the only black man in the area who has went to university but is still disrespected as if he had not which results in him having a detached attitude to the people around him. But fortunately we see a slight transformation in Grant as he continues to have these meetings with Jefferson. Grant begins to become more compassionate and more understanding compared to the beginning where he is disconnected and selfish. By the end of the book I was in tears because we see a complete change in Jefferson and we kind of see this transformation in Grant as well.

         What I loved most about the book even though it was kind of difficult to follow was Jeffersons diary. We witnessed a man who was wrongly convicted come to terms with his own death. He finally realizes that he is a man, that people love him and people care about him. It was very hard to read knowing that this man was going to lose his life because of racism and prejudice. Unfortunately, even though we are in 2019 young black men are still facing tragedies such as this, were they are wrongly imprisoned because of racist individuals and the racist system designed against them.

         The only flaw with this book for me is that Grant was in love with a white woman even though throughout the book we see his struggle as an intelligent black man constantly downgrading his knowledge as to not disrespect the white man. I feel as if this made me not like Grant as much because even though he was seeing and experiencing racism such as Jefferson for example he chose to fall in love with a white woman and not only was she a white woman, she was already married, she already had children and it was just so much going on with her that the love story seemed forced and unbelievable. It’s funny because I’m sure the end of the book gives the impression that Grant can see blacks and whites coming together but I feel like the only white people in the book that demonstrated compassion for Jefferson was Vivian, Grants girlfriend and Paul, a police officer so I didn’t really like that aspect of the book either. For Grant to have felt that way, a lot more white characters would have needed to show more compassion in my opinion but instead they were more like “kill the nigger already”.

         To conclude I do recommend this book. The book was an attention grabber. Furthermore, it reflects on what our ancestors experienced with racism. It also is still relevant to this day. Black men are still wrongly convicted for their skin tone and it also just makes you think about all the black men who died because they were wrongfully imprisoned and sentenced to death or men who weren’t even given the opportunity of a trial because a police officer decided his fate for him.