"This is a novel in the guise of thetape-recorded recollections of a black woman who haslived 110 years, who has been both a slave and awitness to the black militancy of the 1960's. In thiswoman Ernest Gaines has created a legendary figure,a woman equipped to stand beside WilliamFaulkner's Dilsey in The Sound And TheFury ." Miss Jane Pittman, like Dilsey, has'endured,' has seen almost everything and foretold therest. Gaines' novel brings to mind othergreat works The Odyssey for the wayhis heroine's travels manage to summarize theAmerican history of her race, and HuckleberryFinn for the clarity of her voice, forher rare capacity to sort through the mess of yearsand things to find the one true story in it all."-- Geoffrey Wolff, Newsweek .

"Stunning. I know of noblack novel about the Souththat excludes quite the same refreshing mix of witand wrath, imagination and indignation, misery andpoetry. And I can recall no more memorable femalecharacter in Southern fiction since Lena ofFaulkner's Light In August than MissJane Pittman." -- Josh Greenfeld, Life