Document Information

• Chapter: Chapter 30
• Scene: A truck delivers the electric chair
• Draft: Manuscript
• File location: Box 10, folder 54

Discussion Questions

1. In this draft, Grant says, “I told him I would not be there, but still I was there”? Where does Gaines use a similar statement in the final edition of the novel? How does moving that line change your understanding of Grant and the outcome of the novel?

I had told him I would not be there, but still I was there. I did not see the truck pass Sidney Greer, but I would hear later at The Rainbow club when Sidney had spoken to Sidney waved by at the Rainbow Club then the truck passed him at quarter to eight- and so I was there. He was on his way to work at the bus stop.

I had told him I would not be there, but still I was there. I did not see the truck go by as Sidney did—but I was there. I was sitting on the side of my bed with my hands clasped tightly and staring down at the floor at about the same time that the truck passed Sidney Greer, - still I was there with Sidney. Sidney was on his way to work at the warehouse and the truck passed by him, and he did not pay much attention to it—

Document Information

• Chapter: Chapter 30
• Scene: A truck delivers the electric chair
• Draft: Late typescript
• File location: Box 10, folder 54

Discussion Questions

1. In what ways is this draft different from the final published version?
2. Compare this draft to the earlier manuscript draft of chapter 30. What differences do you notice? Do the revisions change how you read this scene?

Sidney deRogers was on his way to George Jarreau’s house to mow the lawn when the truck went by him. He didn’t pay any close attention to the black truck with the gray tauplin cover, but he would tell the people later at the Rainbow Club that he did feel a cold chill. The truck turned left on the main street two blocks up ahead of Sidney, but he thought it was just another truck delivering something at one of the department stores. Around eleven o’ clock George Jarreau’s wife, Lucy, came out into the yard where Sidney was raking up the grass and leaves and told him that she wanted him to go up town to Edwin’s department store and get her a large spool of white thread. Sidney drove the six blocks in Lucy’s car, and as he was approaching the store he saw all the people standing on the sidewalk across the street facing the courthouse. Parked beside the courthouse was the same truck that Sidney had seen at eight o’ clock that morning. The tauplin cover had been rolled back and two men sat in the bed of at the back of truck smoking cigarettes and talking. Sidney parked the car a little passed the department store and walked back. He saw many people he knew, both white and colored, but no one paid him any attention, they were too much concerned with that truck parked beside the courthouse. When Sidney came into the store he found all the clerks