Bloodline: Five Stories
by Ernest J. Gaines
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In these five stories, Ernest Gaines returns to the cane fields, sharecroppers' shacks, and decaying plantation houses of Louisiana, the terrain of his great novels A Gathering of Old Men and A Lesson Before Dying. As rendered by Gaines, this country becomes as familiar, and as haunted by cruelty, suffering, and courage, as Ralph Ellison's Harlem or Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Gaines introduces us to this world through the eyes of guileless children and wizened jailbirds, black tenants show more and white planters. He shows his characters eking out a living and making love, breaking apart aand coming together. And on every page he captures the soul of black community whose circumstances make even the slightest assertion of self-respect an act of majestic--and sometimes suicidal--heroism. Bloodline is a miracle of storytelling. STORIES INCLUDE: A Long Day in November The Sky Is Gray Three Men Bloodline Just Like a Tree show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Gaines' fiction is, as ever, worth reading and re-reading. His works practically vibrate with the power of voice, and with subtle discussions of race, power, poverty, and history--and the stories in this collection are no different. The title story, "Bloodline" might be the most striking of the ones included here, but then again, they're all intoxicating and worthwhile, and "A Long Day in November" is one that will stay with me for a long time.
All told, I can't recommend his work highly enough--whether you've already appreciated his novels or not, whether this would be your first taste of his work or not, this collection is worth wandering through, and the stories included are varied enough (and offered in enough depth) that you won't show more be bored if you decide to read the collection straight through.
Absolutely recommended. show less
All told, I can't recommend his work highly enough--whether you've already appreciated his novels or not, whether this would be your first taste of his work or not, this collection is worth wandering through, and the stories included are varied enough (and offered in enough depth) that you won't show more be bored if you decide to read the collection straight through.
Absolutely recommended. show less
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Author Information
18+ Works 9,974 Members
Ernest James Gaines was born on January 15, 1933, on the River Lake Plantation, Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana. His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines has been a MacArthur Foundation fellow, awarded the National Humanities Medal, and inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des show more Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier. Although he was educated in California (at San Francisco State College and Stanford University), his fiction is dominated by images and characters drawn from rural Louisiana, where he was born and raised. Unquestionably the most recognizable, and probably the best, of Gaines's novels is The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman (1971), a fictional account of the long life of a black woman born a slave on a Louisiana plantation. Through the stories of the many fascinating people who touch Jane's life, Gaines presents not only a moving perspective on the struggles of African Americans but also a social history of the United States since the Civil War. It is a testimony to Gaines's skill as a writer and storyteller that many people believe Jane Pittman was a real person. Indeed, the novel is frequently misshelved in the biography section of bookstores. In 1993 Gaines also won the Dos Passos Prize and in 2000 he won the National Humanities Medal. Of Gaines's other works, Bloodline (1976), a collection of five short stories, stands out for its powerful portrayals of young men in search of self-respect and dignity. In 2013 President Barack Obama presented Mr. Gaines with the National Medal of Arts. Ernest J. Gaines passed away on November 5,2019 at this home in Oscar, LA at the age of 86. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1968
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Historical Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 813.54 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999 1945-1999
- LCC
- PZ4 — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction in English
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 148
- Popularity
- 222,036
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English, French
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 1
