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Book Review of A Lesson Before Dying

A Lesson Before Dying
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WINNER OF NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FOR FICTION!

Set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jerfferson, a young black man, is an unwitting party to a liquor store shootout in which three men are killed; the only survivor, he is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, who left his hometown for the university, has returned to the plantation school to teach. As he strugles with his decision whether to stay or escape to another state, his aunt and Jefferson's godmother persuade him to visit Jefferson in his cell and impart his learning and his proide to Jefferson before his death. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisiting - and defying - the unexpected.