Ernest Gaines reads excerpts from A Gathering of Old Men

Following a brief introduction to his life and work, author Ernest Gaines reads excerpts from his novel A gathering of old men, which deals with the Black tenant farmers in a rural area east of Baton Rouge, La. He introduces the characters Snookum, Janey, Miss Merle, and Rufe in this reading.

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.”—