Seeking Dignity in an Unjust Death NASSAU AND SUFFOLK Edition

A LESSON BEFORE DYING, by [Jerry Bauer-Ernest J. Gaines]. Knopf, 256 pp., $21. IN AN EARLY chapter of "A Lesson Before Dying," Ernest J. Gaines' new novel, a young university-educated black man who's come home to teach in rural Louisiana hears two elderly local men discussing Jac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inNewsday
Main Author By Francine Prose. Francine Prose reviews frequently for this newspaper
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Long Island, N.Y Newsday LLC 06.04.1993
EditionCombined editions
Subjects
Gaines, Jerry Bauer-Ernest J
Joyce, James
Wiggins, Grant
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Summary:A LESSON BEFORE DYING, by [Jerry Bauer-Ernest J. Gaines]. Knopf, 256 pp., $21. IN AN EARLY chapter of "A Lesson Before Dying," Ernest J. Gaines' new novel, a young university-educated black man who's come home to teach in rural Louisiana hears two elderly local men discussing Jackie Robinson. The teacher, Grant Wiggins, is reminded of James Joyce's "Ivy Day in the Committee Room" and of how the Irishmen in that story talk about their hero, Parnell. It's not a connection one would have made without a gentle nudge from the author, but we recognize at once how apt and appropriate it is. Like Joyce, in those early stories, Gaines is writing here about moments of illumination, about the action of grace in impossibly circumscribed lives, about disappointment and dignity - and about what it means to be human. Oddly, in a novel about an innocent man condemned, this is almost the last we hear about legal justice. But the lawyer's unfortunate metaphor resonates throughout. Outraged, Jefferson's godmother, Miss Emma, persuades Grant Wiggins to go see [Jefferson] in prison, to muster all his teaching skills to convince her godson that he isn't a hog - and to help him die like a man. Inevitably, Grant's tense meetings with the understandably bitter Jefferson lead him to confront his own bitterness, as well as his deepest concerns - his feelings about his obligations to his community and to the wider world, about the possibility of salvation, about doubt and faith and hope.