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A Gathering of Old Men

Ernest J. Gaines

Paperback | Pages: 214 pages

Rating: 4.04 | 4955 Users | 407 Reviews

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Original Title:	A Gathering of Old Men
ISBN:	0679738908 (ISBN13: 9780679738909)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Mathu, Candy Marshall, Sheriff Mapes, George "Snookum" Eliot, Jr., Janice "Janey" Robinson, Robert "Chimley" Louis Stevenson Banks, Matthew "Matt" Lincoln Brown, Grant "Cherry" Bello, Cyril "Clatoo" Robillard, Louis "Lou Dimes" Alfred Dimoulin, Joseph "Rufe" Seaberry, Thomas "Sully" Vincent Sullivan, Jacques "Tee Jack" Thibeaux, Albert "Rooster" Jackson, Sidney "Coot" Brooks, Horace "Sharp" Thompson, Luke Will, Gil Boutan, Beau Boutan
Setting:	Louisiana(United States)
Literary Awards:	California Book Award for Fiction (Silver) (1983)

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A Gathering of Old Men: The Way It Used to Be

I selected A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest J. Gaines as the Moderator's Choice for September, 2017, for On the Southern Literary Trail. This is the fourth book by Professor Gaines to be read by "The Trail."
Come join us.

All but one of Ernest J. Gaines' works are set in and around Bayonne, Louisiana. Perhaps a bit strange for a man who has spent more than half his life in California. But it is something that comes as no surprise considering Gaines' childhood. He was born January 15, 1933, on a plantation in Pointe Coupee, Louisiana. He was one of twelve children. They were among the fifth generation of the family to live on that plantation. His Grandparents were slaves. His ancestors lie buried in a cemetery at the rear of that plantation. Many of the graves bear no marker, no names, nothing to identify his ancestors.

By the time Gaines was nine he was picking cotton on the plantation. He lived in a small cabin among many others that at one time had been slave quarters. His first education was in the plantation school, held in the plantation church. No black child attended a school where white children were allowed to go. It was the way it used to be. Neither Gaines or any of the other children on the plantation had access to a library. Those were for whites only. It was the way it used to be.

Gaines and his siblings were raised by an aunt. She was crippled, unable to walk. She was raising Gaines, his brothers, and sisters, when she could only crawl. Ernest Gaines lived in poverty for the first fifteen years of his life. But his mother and stepfather took Ernest with them when they moved to Vallejo, California.

Imagine waking in a new world. Imagine entering a library for the first time at the age of sixteen. The library was two stories tall. Non-fiction was on the first floor. Fiction on the second. Gaines went to the second story. He began to devour novels. He looked for books with people like him in them. He couldn't find them. Even a California library had no books by black authors. That was the way it used to be. He discovered he didn't care for other Southern novelists. He searched for novels set in farm country, the closest he could come to the life of his young years. He read John Steinbeck and Willa Cather. "See, I came from a society -- the South -- in which I wasn't supposed to do things, wasn't supposed to investigate things. I was supposed to stay in my place."

Gaines only returned to Louisiana for short visits. However, as he entered college he was well aware of the Civil Rights Movement. It was the admission of James Meredith to Ole Miss that sparked in Gaines the need to return to Louisiana. After the publication of his first novel, Catherine Carmier in 1964, Gaines returned to Louisiana. He split his year six months in California, six months in Louisiana.

From 1981 until 2004 when he retired, Ernest J. Gaines became Professor Gaines, the writer in residence at The University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He and his wife have a home on land once part of the plantation on which he lived as a child. He moved the plantation church on to his property. When he walks through the old cemetery he cannot find the grave of the aunt who raised him.

What is it that drives Ernest J. Gaines to continue to set his work in Southwest Louisiana? In This Louisiana Thing That Drives Me: The Legacy of Ernest J. Gaines Gaines wrote:

"I wanted to smell that Louisiana earth, feel that Louisiana sun, sit under the shade of one of those Louisiana oaks, search for pecans in that Louisiana grass in one of those Louisiana yards next to one of those Louisiana bayous, not far from a Louisiana river. I wanted to see on paper those Louisiana black children walking to school on cold days while yellow Louisiana busses passed them by. I wanted to see on paper those place parents going to work before the sun came up and coming back home to look after their children after the sun went down. I wanted to see on paper the true reason why those black fathers left home--not because they were trifling or shiftless--but because they were tired of putting up with certain conditions. I wanted to see on paper the small country churches (schools during the week), and I wanted to hear those simple religious songs, those simple prayers--that true devotion....And I wanted to hear that Louisiana Dialect--that combination of English, Creole, Cajun, Black. For me there's no more beautiful sound anywhere--unless, of course, you take exceptional pride in "proper" French or "proper" English. I wanted to read about the true relationship between whites and blacks--about people I had known."

I love the novels of Ernest J. Gaines. He is among my favorite authors. Being a native born Southerner, growing up in Alabama, and white, Gaines opened a world to me to which I return again and again. I finally met Professor Gaines late in October, 2014. I consider him the most significant writer I have ever met. I also consider him to lack the recognition he deserves as an American writer. I am not alone in my belief.

Madison Smart Bell reviewed A Gathering of Old Men upon its publication in 1983. He wrote, "I think he's oddly underrated, because he's one of those black writers who has been on the program for a long time." Bell went further to say this book was "the best-written novel on Southern race relations in over a decade." Returning to the thought that Gaines was underrated, Bell wrote, "At certain times he has been greatly celebrated, and his subsequent work has not gotten the attention it should have. But people like Ernest Gaines are a lot more important than anyone has fully recognized."

This is my second reading of A Gathering of Old Men. I've also listened to the wonderful Audible edition of the novel. It fully captures the flavor of Gaines' use of multiple narrators. I have previously said I could not decide whether this novel or The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman was my favorite. After multiple reads, this novel takes the lead for me. I do chalk it up to the powerful multiple narratives of those old men who gathered on one day to throw off the oppression which they had endured thirty years or more.

Gaines captures the decades of racism endured by the old men who share crop the Marshall plantation. Each tells the story behind the reason they are there this particular day. Listening to each of them is reminiscent of the chorus of a Greek tragedy.

What drives each of the old men is a recognition they will no longer bow to the shame they and their ancestors have accepted until the unbelievable has happened. A black man has killed a white man. The dead man is Beau Boutan a Cajun farmer who has leased land worked by them as sharecroppers for generations. The mule and plow has been replaced by the tractor. The Boutans and their Cajun neighbors have inflicted rape, murder, and humiliation on the old men. Once word gets out that Beau is dead, all anticipate that the father, "Fix Boutan" will night ride into their quarters to dispense their own version of justice.

All the men who gather are there to claim they each killed Boutan. The suspect in the killing is Matthu, the only black man to ever stand up to Fix Boutan and beat him in a fair fight. Candy Marshall the heiress to the Marshall plantation considers Matthu and all the men who arrive at his house to be "her people." Orphaned when her parents died in an automobile accident, Candy considers Matthu to be her Parrain or Grandfather. She engineers the scheme to gather the old men, all carrying shotguns with the same shot shells as Matthu's gun, to protect the man.

What ensues is a taut novel as local Sheriff Mapes attempts to deal with all these old men and Candy Marshall, each who claim to have killed Beau Boutan. Nothing will break their story. As Mapes bullies each of the old men, each reveals the tragedies of their lives they will no longer endure.

Gaines draws the story to a conclusion in a surprising denoument. Set in the 1970s, Gaines paints a vivid portrait of a South beginning to change, but not having changed enough. This is a novel of hope, found strength, and courage. Any reader will never forget A Gathering of Old Men.

Define About Books A Gathering of Old Men

Title	:	A Gathering of Old Men
Author	:	Ernest J. Gaines
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 214 pages
Published	:	June 30th 1992 by Vintage (first published 1983)
Categories	:	Fiction. Classics. Historical. Historical Fiction. Cultural. African American. Academic. School

Rating About Books A Gathering of Old Men

Ratings: 4.04 From 4955 Users | 407 Reviews

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I decided against an afternoon at a fantastic art museum in favor of finishing this book! Yes, it was that compelling. In fact, as I got closer and closer to the end, I had to set it down time after time, as I couldn't handle the suspense--but then I had to pick it up again in 30 sec or so, because I just HAD to know what happened. How did I not know about this author until now?? This book was published in 1983, at a time when I didn't read fiction for almost 2 decades. I will now read anything

Ernest J. Gaines's novel A Gathering of Old Men is set on a sugarcane plantation in Louisiana in the 1970s. There, one white woman and about 18 armed, old black men go nose-to-nose with the sheriff and his inept deputy over the death of a Cajun farmer. Each of the 18 men and say he did it, and so does the woman, but the sheriff believes he knows who is responsible. They engage in a day-long stand-off while Sheriff Mapes waits for the lynch mob he believes will come to vindicate the death of the

"But they comes a day, Sheriff, they comes a day when a man got to stand".And that's what this book is about.

Have read several of Ernest Gaines books - simple prose for complicated social situations.

Wow! What a powerful story! I often think that a five-star rating is just too many stars to choose from, but after reading this novel, five stars is just not enough. It was hard to put the book down, but necessary at times just to take a deep breath before continueing to read (and breathe). This is the second novel by Gaines I read (this month, ever). After reading A Lesson Before Dying I thought my expectations for this book might just be too high. Yet I was in for another big surprise. I

Destined to be one of my top reads for 2012, this is a powerful tale of the deep south and the terrible bigotry that existed in the 1970's.When a son of the local, powerful white racist is killed, it takes a strong white woman to gather the old black men to rally.When each man arrives on the porch, gun in hand, they await the sheriff and the local near do wells who will seek revenge.When the sheriff demands to know who is to blame, each and every older gentleman claims he was the culprit.Each

We read this book in an Advanced Reading class that I taught for the Spring session. This was the second or third time that I have used this book in a reading class, and with each read it reveals more to me and increases my appreciation of Ernest Gaines' writing.Gaines' device of using different narrators for each chapter gives this book a layered perspective of the events that happen over one day on a Louisiana sugar cane plantation in the nineteen seventies. Gaines knows his subject,