A Lesson Before Dying (Oprah's Book Club)

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • A deep and compassionate novel about a young man who returns to 1940s Cajun country to visit a Black youth on death row for a crime he didn't commit. Together they come to understand the heroism of resisting.

"An instant classic." —Chicago Tribune

A “majestic, moving novel...an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives" (Chicago Tribune), from the critically acclaimed author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman.

"A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines's position as an important American writer." —Boston Globe

"
Enormously moving.... Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes." —Los Angeles Times

“A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we've been before to impart a lesson for living.” —San Francisco Chronicle

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256 pages

Average rating: 7.47

43 RATINGS

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Community Reviews

paigeairey
Dec 21, 2023
7/10 stars
Such a sad read but ultimately a really beautiful take on the preciousness of human life

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