Notes

The story is set in a small Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young black man is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins has returned to the community to teach was persuaded to visit the condemned man. In the end, the two men forge a bond as they both come to understand the simple heroism of resisting-and defying-the expected. Winner of the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.