Mary Ellen Doyle. Voices from the Quarters: the Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines

African American Review, Summer, 2004 by Marc Steinberg

Mary Ellen Doyle. Voices from the Quarters: The Fiction of Ernest J. Gaines. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 2002. 245 pp. $14.95.

Full-length studies of Ernest Gaines's fiction are pretty scant, and Mary Ellen Doyle's book is certainly a useful addition to the criticism of the author s work. Doyle has assumed the daunting task of exploring and connecting all of Gaines's fiction, including uncollected short stories. Writing about an author's entire oeuvre is decidedly tricky business, for there is always the possibility of scattershot results. However, Doyle wisely limits her focus, concentrating mostly on Gaines's approach to style and narration as well as looking at several recurring themes, especially the persistent struggle and search for manhood in his fiction.

Doyle provides an author-centered criticism of Gaines's work, and she is critically aware of Gaines's own point of view. Her critical approach is not really grounded in contemporary theory; she is primarily interested in a close reading of narrative, character, and symbol. Her prose is thankfully free of jargon, and her intended audience would seem to go beyond academia. The study is very appropriate for lower-division undergraduates as well as readers interested in Gaines's fiction.

For contextual purposes, Doyle offers the reader a chapter which concentrates on (often) relevant background information on the author. This first chapter begins with a helpful geography lesson of Gaines's fictional world, and we learn a fair amount about the author's real world and his upbringing in Louisiana, his family, and his education. Of course, those not particularly interested in (or even theoretically opposed to) biographical criticism may find the chapter a bit distracting. The chapter is ultimately interesting, if not wholly necessary, and some of Doyle's anecdotes (including a story about Gaines's "genius" and his reception of the MacArthur "Genius Grant") are entertaining.

In terms of thematic exploration, Doyle concentrates on such matters as manhood (a much-written-about issue in Gaines's fiction), familial relationships, and, especially in the later novels, community themes. Analysis of this last theme is especially effective in her discussion of In My Father's House, A Gathering of Old Men, and A Lesson Before Dying. Of course, this is logical considering Gaines's shift in focus from the individual (and individual growth) to the community (and communal growth). Doyle also offers valuable social/cultural analysis in her discussion of Of Love and Dust, focusing on issues of race as they relate to employment and criminal justice. Also of thematic critical interest is her connection of the various sketches of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Gaines's focus on matters of freedom, growth, and responsibility. She looks beyond the title character to explore themes of manhood as they relate to the four main male characters. She, in fact, comes full circle in her discussion of the search for manhood in Gaines's work by further exploring the matter in his most recent novel, A Lesson Before Dying. Toward the end of her study of this novel she writes, "the one question at the hub of all others, that of defining and exemplifying manhood, has been answered. The novel dichotomizes not man and woman but hog and human.... Manhood equals simple, integral humanity." Her analysis of this and other themes is certainly valuable, but her concentration on matters of form and narration are particularly significant.

Doyle's focus on character voices and innovations in technique are especially helpful. In her discussion of Catherine Carmier, she even explores how the novel's style hampers the effectiveness of the text; she notes that the "style makes it more difficult to reveal the characters in any depth, and it can get as tedious as the lives it reflects." Her concentration on form is the result of a close structural reading. For instance, in analyzing A Lesson Before Dying she notes that "this dialogue's sincerity is intensified by the absence of 'I said.., she said' construction." In discussing the novel she also explores Jefferson's diary in great detail, looking at verb tenses as well as the size and effect of various entries. Doyle's discussion of narration and narrative effects in the various texts is perhaps the book's strongest point.

She is especially skillful in connecting Gaines's dialogue structures to the themes and plots of his fiction. Examples of her success with this abound. One might, for example, note her focus on choice and arrangement of narrators and use of different narrative modes in A Gathering of Old Men or her exploration of communication in A Lesson Before Dying, as the text moves from silence to voice. Particularly interesting is her discussion of what she calls "camcorder narration," a term she focuses on in her discussion of Bloodline but returns to later in her critique. She defines the term as follows: "It is as if a video camera has been placed in the child's mind.... The camera also registers all they see and hear but could never fully understand, remember, or repeat." The fact that Doyle explores both silences and voices indicates the depth of her narrative interest. She also can be critical of Gaines's narrative approach. In her lucid analysis of the narrative problems in Catherine Carmier she claims, "Sometimes, however, the authorial wish to create characters who feel both intensity and confusion of emotion ends in unhelpful confusion of viewpoint. Sometimes it is not clear which mind we are reading." Clearly, then, experiments in narration are not always successful.