Critics have been kind to Gaines, but his reputation has not risen with such meteoric speed as have the reputations of some of the other contemporary black writers of his generation. In the introduction to Ernest Gaines, Valerie Babb's biography of Gaines through the lens of his work, Babb writes, "taken as a whole, Gaines's canon represents a blending of Louisiana, African-American, and universal human experience. His writings reproduce the communal nature of storytelling in his rural parish while accenting the historicity that joins members of the African-American diaspora to larger American society. By recording and preserving his people's culture in his literature, Gaines creates both an ongoing memorial to a vanishing way of life and an enduring testament to human concerns."

Marcia Gaudet and Carl Wooton share many of Babb's observations, particularly with regard to the importance of dignity under strain and courage. In their...