A Lesson Before Dying

By: Romulus Linney

Narrated by: Rick Foucheux, Keith Glover, Jamahl Marsh, full cast

Length: 1 hr and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Based on Ernest J. Gaines' National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel, A Lesson Before Dying is set in a small Louisiana Cajun community in the late 1940s. Jefferson, a young illiterate black man, is falsely convicted of murder and is sentenced to death. Grant Wiggins, the plantation schoolteacher, agrees to talk with the condemned man.

The disheartened Wiggins had once harbored dreams of escaping from his impoverished youth, yet he returned to his hometown after university, to teach children whose lives seemed as unpromising as Jefferson's. The two men forge a bond as they come to understand what it means to resist and defy one's fate.

©2001 L.A. Theatre Works (P)2001 L.A. Theatre Works

Enjoyed the lessons in this book so much!

This book was so interesting. I purchased the hard copy but switched to the audiobook version and the story just came alive for me. The acting was superb. I could visualize everything that they shared. The multiple lessons in the book were a surprise to me. I focused I. The main lesson of Jefferson but saw all the lessons that people learned through the experience and words shared. Definitely recommend this to others to experience.

Altogether was amazing!!

I loved every single moment of listening to this audiobook! I disappointed when it did not continue onto the rest of the book because the voice actors were doing such an amazing job of expressing the characters emotions. I am glad I bought the two chapters anyway because it gave me a good introduction of how awesome of a read this book really is.

Make sure before anyone buys this audiobook to understand it is not the full book only two chapters are on audio.

Great Play

One of the best LA Theatre Works has done. It made me cry. I definitely recommend this one!

Well done

I loved this, because i personally love it when i can imagine different characters. This was very visual. I would listen to another book like this in a heartbeat

Good storytelling

The story is well written yet all too true about the life on many black folks in America. A sad, but we’ll told tale.

Lesson learnt

I am so glad that he learnt that it's not what people think of you but it is what you know about yourself. He went to his destiny proud. Wish he had gotten the verdict against him reversed but he accepted that he made a mistake and faced what was to come like a man.

Don't do it

Would you try another book from Romulus Linney and/or the narrators?

Romulus Linney is very good. But this "book" is really just an audio recording of a badly done play version of the book.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Doesn't matter. It was so poorly rendered.

Would you be willing to try another one of the narrators’s performances?

Absolutely not. It was terrible.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

No.

Any additional comments?

Get the original book by Ernest Gaines, or find a good production of the play and go see it. This production has no redeeming value. Bad acting, completely inauthentic accents. Don't even.

Two chapters

There was only two chapters of the book. I don't know if it was because of the free trial or what.

Good story destroyed by a ham fisted performance

The story is a great one. The lead teacher character has a false 'voice of authority' affectation. It's horrible. The other actors are good.

Disappointed

What would have made A Lesson Before Dying better?

Record a pure, exact reading by the author or an expert reader, rather than a disappointingly boring dramatization (if you can call it that). I have just listened to Toni Morrison reading The Bluest Eye.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

I LOVE the book; it's the reading I have a problem with.

Any additional comments?

Keep supplying readings.