The novel is based on the true story of Willie Francis, a young Black American man best known for surviving a failed electrocution in the state of Louisiana, in 1946.

Jefferson, a young black man, is accused and convicted of a murder for perpetrating a shoot-out in a liquor store which left three men killed.

As they understand compassion, human struggles and existential revelations through their newfound brotherhood, Grant also forms a bond with the white Deputy Paul Bonin.

[2] The book provides perspective on the status of African Americans in the South after World War II and before the Civil Rights Movement.

It shows the Jim Crow American South through the eyes of a formally educated African-American teacher who often feels helpless and alienated from his own country.

The character feels his life and career choices are severely limited due to racial prejudices, an example of this in the novel being his instinct to refer to white male authority figures as "Sir".

Grant feels that he is cornered by myriad forces: his aunt's incessant desires, pressures to conform to a fundamentalist religion that he does not believe, the children's needs to fulfil his role as a teacher, and the community's craving for proper leadership.

Jackie Robinson had just finished his second year with the Brooklyn Dodgers," indicates that the story takes place in early October 1948, a time that dates the darkest histories of race relations for African Americans.

[5] Bayonne is an actual city in France, but also the fictional Louisiana town where the generation is set before the Civil Rights movement in the South, depicted in the novel.

[citation needed] A play by Romulus Linney and a Southern Writers' Project, based on the novel and having the same title, had its world premiere at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival in January 2000 and Off-Broadway in September 2000.