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  • One of the best-written novels on Southern race relations

  • A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines is referred to by many as one of the best-written novels on Southern race relations in over 20 years. This story, which takes place in Louisiana during the 1970's, is about how one young white woman and 18 very old black men toting 12-gauge shot guns take a ... Continue

    A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines is referred to by many as one of the best-written novels on Southern race relations in over 20 years. This story, which takes place in Louisiana during the 1970's, is about how one young white woman and 18 very old black men toting 12-gauge shot guns take a stand to protect a member of their community from a group of Klansmen who want nothing better than to take the law into their own hands. Beau Boutan, a mean spirited and hateful Cajun farmer, has been shot and killed by a black member of the community.

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• ― thegrits said on Oct 14, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

Set on a Louisiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s, A Gathering of Old Men is a powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man.

"Poignant, powerful, earthy...a novel of Southern racial confrontation in which a group of elderly black men band together against whites who seek vengeance for the murder of one of their own."--Booklist

"A fine novel...there is a denouement that will shock and move readers as much as it does the characters."--Philadelphia Inquirer

• DramaFavoriteSLUHrace-relationssouthern literature