Ernest James Gaines had a hard childhood. ( Andrews p.146) Gaines was raised by his Aunt Augusteen Jefferson which is his father’s sister. She was physically and mentally crippled. Gaines was the oldest of twelve children. There were nine boys and three girls in his family. They consisted of the fifth generation. At the age of nine he worked in the fields earning fifty cents a day. ( Bourque p.30) While working in the plantation fields, he picked cotton and went fishing in the swamps. Gaines’ mother was sixteen years old when she gave birth to him. Gaines’ mother and father both worked in the sugar cane fields until they got a divorced. After th

to San Francisco to join his mother and stepfather. They had gone there a few years before. Gaines left Louisiana during World War II.

Gaines has written a lot of novels that made him who is today. In 1964 he wrote Catherine Carmier about the relationship between a black man and a sheltered Creole woman. In 1967 he wrote Of Love and Dust about a black Romeo and Juliet tragedy. In 1968 he wrote Bloodline of five short stories, one of which The Sky Is Gray became a PBS film. In 1971 he wrote the Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, made by CBS into the Emmy Awards winning television film starring Cicely Tyson. In 1971 he wrote A Long Day In November about the rites of passage between young and old. In 1978 he wrote In My Father’s House about the Double life of a minister and civil rights leader. In 1983 he wrote Gathering of Old Men about twelve men conspire to protect a killer, made into a television movie in 1993. Catherine Camier is about a young black man who returns to Bayonne after completing his education in California. This was his first novel. The novel portrays numerous clashes between her and father love. It immobilizes pressures of the rural community. Catherine was torn between her love for her boyfriend and the love for her father. The characters must face an unfriendly world without guidance and must make crucial choices about their lives. They are faced with struggles that test the conviction of personal beliefs. Of Love and Dust demonstrates Gaines’s development as a novelist, offering a clearer view of the themes and characters that dominate his work. The story is based a forbidden romance. The novel is about a young black man bonded out of prison by a white landowner and placed under supervision. Gaines search is for human dignity. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is well over one hundred years old lady that relates a personal history that spans the time from the Civil War and slavery up through the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. The novel is deeply rooted in the black culture and storytelling traditions of rural Louisiana where the author was born and raised. In My Father’s House, Gaines focuses on a theme which appears the alienation between fathers and sons. It presents the particular problem of manhood for the black male. This is his fourth novel he wrote. This novel tells of a prominent civil rights leader and reverend is at the peak of his career is confronted with a troubled young man that identity is initially a mystery. The father hasn’t seen or attempted to locate his family for more than twenty years. The son confronts to kill his fa

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