In these five stories, 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.

STORIES INCLUDE:

A Long Day in November

The Sky Is Gray

Three Men

Bloodline

Just Like a Tree