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apbroussard42 's review for:
A Lesson Before Dying
by Ernest J. Gaines
This story follows Grant Wiggins, a teacher who has been asked to regularly visit a former student, Jefferson, a very young Black man who has been falsely accused of murdering a white man and has now been sentenced to the electric chair. Persistently asked by Jefferson's Nannan Emma and his own Taunt Lou to help Jefferson face this unjust fate with strength, Wiggins reluctantly agrees with very little expectation. What follows is a journey that cannot be described, only endured.
Never in my life have a cried harder throughout the last 30 pages of a book.
I have had the honor of interning at the Ernest J. Gaines Center in the heart of my hometown, and although I had read this over a decade ago, the impact was somehow stronger the second time around. Calling Gaines's work 'prolific' is not enough. It is a massive understatement. He was a writer whose talent transcends the page, fills my chest with the crushing weight of lead that later cascades as liquid out of my eyes, my soul.
'A Lesson Before Dying' will stay with me forever. 5⭐️
Never in my life have a cried harder throughout the last 30 pages of a book.
I have had the honor of interning at the Ernest J. Gaines Center in the heart of my hometown, and although I had read this over a decade ago, the impact was somehow stronger the second time around. Calling Gaines's work 'prolific' is not enough. It is a massive understatement. He was a writer whose talent transcends the page, fills my chest with the crushing weight of lead that later cascades as liquid out of my eyes, my soul.
'A Lesson Before Dying' will stay with me forever. 5⭐️