A Gathering of Old Men is a story concerned with racism, lynching, and the quandaries faced by the American judicial system. Set on a cane farm in the 1970s, it follows Candy, a white woman, and seventeen elderly black men in their quest to protect one of their number, a man named Mathu, from prosecution for the murder of a local white supremacist on his property. The novel is ambiguous as to Mathu's guilt and paints a strong picture of community moral dilemmas as they relate to racism.
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