The Tragedy of Brady Sims

by Ernest J. Gaines Narrated by JD Jackson, Danny Campbell

Overview

A courthouse shooting leads a young reporter to uncover the long story of race and power in his small town and the relationship between the white sheriff and the black man who "whipped children" to keep order-in the final novella by the beloved Ernest J. Gaines.

After Brady Sims pulls out a*gun in a courtroom and shoots his own son, who has just been convicted of robbery and murder, he asks only to be allowed two hours before he'll give himself up to the sheriff. When the editor of the local newspaper asks his cub reporter to dig up a "human interest" story about Brady, he heads for the town's barbershop. It is the barbers and the regulars who hang out there who narrate with empathy, sadness, humor, and a profound understanding the life story of Brady Sims-an honorable, just, and unsparing man who with his tough love had been handed the task of keeping the black children of Bayonne, Louisiana in line to protect them from the unjust world in which they lived. And when his own son makes a fateful mistake, it is up to Brady to carry out the necessary reckoning. In the telling, we learn the story of a small southern town, divided by race, and the black community struggling to survive even as many of its inhabitants head off northwards during the Great Migration.

Editorial Reviews

OCTOBER 2017 - AudioFile

Ernest Gaines’s latest novella tells the story of Brady Sims’s public shooting of his son in a Louisiana courtroom. As narrators, JD Jackson and Danny Campbell pair exceptionally well. Jackson reads the perspective of Louis Guerin, a young African-American reporter. Jackson’s slow, rambling style pleasantly meanders through the majority of the story. He excels at portraying the group of old men who hang out at a local barbershop and are integral to informing Louis about Brady Sims’s history. Toward the end of the novel, Campbell enters as the voice of Mapes, an overweight white sheriff. His slightly shaky, strained voice fits the conflicted sheriff exactly. The easy transitions between these two talented narrators add to the complex picture of racial relations that Gaines paints. D.M.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

From the Publisher

A taut and searing tale about race and small-town justice. . . . The history the men recount is, indeed, riveting in its insights into how racism harms everyone, crystallized in Mapes’ heartbroken tribute to his friend: ‘Hell of a man, that Brady Sims.’ Gaines tells a hell of a story.”  —Donna Seaman, Booklist

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169123180
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	08/29/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Tragedy of Brady Sims"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Ernest J. Gaines.
Excerpted by permission of Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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