“This majestic, moving novel is an instant classic, a book that will be read, discussed and taught beyond the rest of our lives.” —Chicago Tribune
“A Lesson Before Dying reconfirms Ernest J. Gaines’s position as an important American writer.” — Boston Globe
“Enormously moving. . . . Gaines unerringly evokes the place and time about which he writes.” —Los Angeles Times
“A quietly moving novel [that] takes us back to a place we’ve been before to impart a lesson for living.” —San Francisco Chronicle