"My eyes were closed before this moment, Jefferson, My eyes have been closed all my life. Yes, we all need you. Every last one of us."
It's a heartbreaking but ultimately inspiring book. It reminds me of Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". It teaches the power of knowledge- how it changes perception. There is more to reality than what the senses can grasp.
“He was the strongest man in that crowded room, Grant Wiggins,” Paul said, staring at me and speaking louder than was necessary. “He was, he was. I’m not saying this to make you feel good, I’m not saying this to ease your pain.”p. 255 ( )

This is a very moving book and a profound meditation on religion as a therepeutic lie vs. education as painful, truthful dignity. In the end the protagonist, Grant Wiggins, manages to salvage a kind of victory out of a horrible situation, but in doing so, he knows that the larger injustices remain - so the victory is hollow. ( )

Heartbreaking story of an unjustly condemned young black man who learns to die with dignity. ( )

2836 Catherine Carmier, by Ernest J. Gaines (read 14 Feb 1996) This is, I think, the author's first novel, published in 1964. It tells of a light-colored Negro, Catherine Carmier, who falls in love with Jackson, who is an educated darker black. Catherine's father is bound that Catherine will not associate with darker blacks. The book is quite well -written, but it tells a stark story, loaded with domestic unrest and violence, and Catherine is promiscuous and I cannot admire her. But it led led me to feel I should read a later book by Gaines, an important black Southern writer [and I did on July 20, 1996.] ( )

www.barnesandnoble.comAnnotation
By the author of A Gathering of Old Men and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, this is a compelling love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where African Americans, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence. "(Gaines') best writing is marked by what Ralph Ellison, describing the blues, called 'near-tragic, near-comic lyricism."--Newsweek.

From the Publisher
By the author of A Lesson Before Dying and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Catherine Carmier is a compelling love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where blacks, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence.
After living in San Francisco for ten years, Jackson returns home to his benefactor, Aunt Charlotte. Surrounded by family and old friends, he discovers that his bonds to them have been irreparably rent by his absence. In the midst of his alienation from those around him, he falls in love with Catherine Carmier, setting the stage for conflicts and confrontations which are complex, tortuous, and universal in their implications.