Like one of his models, William Faulkner, Gaines has chosen to focus his fiction on a small portion of the South, discovering in his mythical Bayonne, Louisiana, a great richness of human experience. The fact that it is a world that had been largely ignored simply adds to his importance as an interpreter of American culture.
Gaines was born on the River Lake Plantation near Oscar, Louisiana; his parents, Manuel and Adrienne Gaines, were sharecroppers. Gaines has described digging potatoes as a young child for fifty cents a day. His paraplegic aunt, Augusteen Jefferson, managed to feed, clothe, and discipline him and his brothers while their parents worked in the fields. The world of the plantation and nearby town, with its mixture of blacks, black and white Creoles, and Cajuns, has served as the setting for all of Gaines's fiction. His aunt has served as the model for the recurring figure of the strong older woman whose endurance, faith, and sacrifice have aided generations of struggling African Americans.
Gaines's parents separated when Ernest was eight, and he lost contact with his father, who served in World War II and then moved to New Orleans.
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