A Lesson Before Dying (Serpent's Tail Classics) - Softcover

Gaines has created a powerful and loving portrait of a small, mainly cane-cutting community ... A transcendent and heartfelt novel of redemption (Guardian)

This is a fine and decent book that lives in the memory for its elegance and sadness ... like the best country songs, straight and true, unafraid of sentiment and written for the people it depicts, not simply about them (Independent)

A narrative of the deep pain of the south... Gaines writes from the blues and his novel has redemptive power (Morning Star)

Gaines has written a novel that is not only never maudlin, but approaches the spare beauty of a classic (Kirkus)

This majestic, moving novel is an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives. (Chicago Tribune)

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 truly gripping read (Sunday Herald 2015-06-14)

This is the award-winning classic novel of prejudice, community and what it means to be a man in the American South.