Bloodline: Five Stories - Paperback

Bloodline: Five Stories by Ernest Gaines

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 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 Included in This Collection

A Long Day in November
The Sky Is Gray
Three Men
Bloodline
Just Like a Tree

About Ernest Gaines

Ernest Gaines was born on a plantation in Pointe Coupée Parish near New Roads, Louisiana, which is the Bayonne of all his fictional works. He is writer-in-residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. In 1993 Gaines received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for his lifetime achievements. In 1996 he was named a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, one of France's highest decorations. He and his wife, Dianne, live in Oscar, Louisiana.

Why Read Bloodline

This collection showcases Gaines' mastery of the short story form, exploring themes of race, dignity, and survival in the rural South. Each story stands alone while contributing to a larger portrait of African American life in Louisiana's plantation country. The narrative voices range from innocent children to hardened men, each offering unique perspectives on the struggle for self-respect in an oppressive society.