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Catherine Carmier
A compelling debut love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where blacks, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence--by the award-winning author of A Lesson Before Dying and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman .
After living in San Francisco for ten years, Jackson returns home to his benefactor, Aunt Charlotte. Surrounded by family and old friends, he discovers that his bonds to them have been irreparably rent by his absence. In the midst of his alienation from those around him, he falls in love with Catherine Carmier, setting the stage for conflicts and confrontations which are complex, tortuous, and universal in their implications.
After living in San Francisco for ten years, Jackson returns home to his benefactor, Aunt Charlotte. Surrounded by family and old friends, he discovers that his bonds to them have been irreparably rent by his absence. In the midst of his alienation from those around him, he falls in love with Catherine Carmier, setting the stage for conflicts and confrontations which are complex, tortuous, and universal in their implications.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1964
26 people are currently reading
489 people want to read
About the author
Ernest J. Gaines
56 books1,169 followersErnest James Gaines was an American author whose works have been taught in college classrooms and translated into many languages, including French, Spanish, German, Russian and Chinese. Four of his works were made into television movies.
His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, was awarded the National Humanities Medal, and was inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.
His 1993 novel, A Lesson Before Dying, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Gaines was a MacArthur Foundation fellow, was awarded the National Humanities Medal, and was inducted into the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters) as a Chevalier.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews
June 28, 2019
I am always drawn to stories that feature a return to a family or community after a prolonged absence, and Gaines presents a poignant one in Catherine Carmier. Jackson returns not as a fresh faced enthusiastic young man ready to take up the challenge and duty to give to his community what he has received in California, but is instead disillusioned and frustrated with the unfairness and cruelties that seem to be true no matter where he goes because of who and what he is. For Jackson, leaving his small segregated community in Louisiana, was an opportunity to taste freedom through education and being surrounded by people who are more open minded. Unfortunately, Jackson finds a different reality than what he dreamed.
I was immersed in the story almost immediately. I felt for and understood both Jackson and Charlotte's perspectives. Jackson not wanting to be restricted by the harsh social prejudices that are adhered to by all sides in his home town is understandable. All of the racist rules had to have made him feel choked off from opportunities that should be available to him. As a young man wanting to feel respected and valued not only as a man, but as a full human being Jackson can't bring himself to willingly step back into the place that would be assigned to him. Yet, Charlotte wants Jackson to return not only for her own selfish reasons, but to also be a hopeful example to the other young people in the community. The tension from the push and pull of family and community obligation versus the desire to move forward unencumbered by the debt and unfair and unequal social restrictions are painful to witness. Even Jackson's fascination with a young woman, who in his mind should be within his reach, is yet another frustration and hit to his manhood added to his return home.
Unsurprisingly, Gaines smoothly incorporates complex themes of race, colorism, class, gender, and family obligations into a short book. My only complaint is that the ending left me wanting a full conclusion to Jackson's fate that isn't given. However, I have to admit that the ending does work because it leaves issues only half settled, which felt realistic. I am very glad that I am reading all of Gaines' books this year and Catherine Carmier was an excellent start.
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monlatable Book Reviews*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @MonlatReader
Instagram: @readermonica
Facebook: Monica Reeds
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
I was immersed in the story almost immediately. I felt for and understood both Jackson and Charlotte's perspectives. Jackson not wanting to be restricted by the harsh social prejudices that are adhered to by all sides in his home town is understandable. All of the racist rules had to have made him feel choked off from opportunities that should be available to him. As a young man wanting to feel respected and valued not only as a man, but as a full human being Jackson can't bring himself to willingly step back into the place that would be assigned to him. Yet, Charlotte wants Jackson to return not only for her own selfish reasons, but to also be a hopeful example to the other young people in the community. The tension from the push and pull of family and community obligation versus the desire to move forward unencumbered by the debt and unfair and unequal social restrictions are painful to witness. Even Jackson's fascination with a young woman, who in his mind should be within his reach, is yet another frustration and hit to his manhood added to his return home.
Unsurprisingly, Gaines smoothly incorporates complex themes of race, colorism, class, gender, and family obligations into a short book. My only complaint is that the ending left me wanting a full conclusion to Jackson's fate that isn't given. However, I have to admit that the ending does work because it leaves issues only half settled, which felt realistic. I am very glad that I am reading all of Gaines' books this year and Catherine Carmier was an excellent start.
Where you can find me:
•(♥).•*Monlatable Book Reviews*•.(♥)•
Twitter: @MonlatReader
Instagram: @readermonica
Facebook: Monica Reeds
Goodreads Group: The Black Bookcase
February 19, 2018
So, what’s this about really?
It is a description of a place and a time. The setting is rural Louisiana in the 1960s. Cajuns, Whites and Blacks are competing for land, for employment and for their very existence.
It is about a dysfunctional family--a father deeply tied to his daughter, a daughter deeply tied to her father, this being the Catherine of the book’s title, and a mother who needs to be needed. Each feels emotionally and sexually deprived. They want more. They are not satisfied.
Jackson, the central protagonist of the novel, he is not satisfied either. He left this hometown, has gotten himself educated in California, but has now returned. He is searching for more. Intellectual improvement, a promising future and of course love too. Disappointed by what he saw and experienced in California, he is at a loss of where and how to proceed next.
This is a book about frustrated earnings--physical, sexual, emotional and intellectual. Earnings are so strong and so frustrated that they overflow into violence.
The characters are searching for fulfillment, not always through themselves but through others.
The prose is abrupt, strong, sometimes brutal, interspersed with dialogs mirroring the language of the town’s people. Conversations are a mix of black, creole and Cajun dialects.
The story becomes more complicated than you originally think; it is this that raises it up a notch. The telling is powerful and moving. I ended up liking it, despite the fact that dysfunctional family stories are not my usual cup of tea.
Audible in the US sells the audiobook. It is produced by Blackstone Audio Incorporated. It is said t to be narrated by S. Patricia Bailey, but it isn’t. It is narrated instead by D.M. Green. Audible should provide accurate information! I have notified them; hopefully the information will be corrected. At the beginning I found the narration to be unprofessional. The tempo and volume varied, words were indistinct and the production of the recording was quite simply poor. As one proceeds the reading becomes stronger and clearer. The annoying variations subside. By the end, Green’s reading had improved a lot. I have given the narration three stars.
It is a description of a place and a time. The setting is rural Louisiana in the 1960s. Cajuns, Whites and Blacks are competing for land, for employment and for their very existence.
It is about a dysfunctional family--a father deeply tied to his daughter, a daughter deeply tied to her father, this being the Catherine of the book’s title, and a mother who needs to be needed. Each feels emotionally and sexually deprived. They want more. They are not satisfied.
Jackson, the central protagonist of the novel, he is not satisfied either. He left this hometown, has gotten himself educated in California, but has now returned. He is searching for more. Intellectual improvement, a promising future and of course love too. Disappointed by what he saw and experienced in California, he is at a loss of where and how to proceed next.
This is a book about frustrated earnings--physical, sexual, emotional and intellectual. Earnings are so strong and so frustrated that they overflow into violence.
The characters are searching for fulfillment, not always through themselves but through others.
The prose is abrupt, strong, sometimes brutal, interspersed with dialogs mirroring the language of the town’s people. Conversations are a mix of black, creole and Cajun dialects.
The story becomes more complicated than you originally think; it is this that raises it up a notch. The telling is powerful and moving. I ended up liking it, despite the fact that dysfunctional family stories are not my usual cup of tea.
Audible in the US sells the audiobook. It is produced by Blackstone Audio Incorporated. It is said t to be narrated by S. Patricia Bailey, but it isn’t. It is narrated instead by D.M. Green. Audible should provide accurate information! I have notified them; hopefully the information will be corrected. At the beginning I found the narration to be unprofessional. The tempo and volume varied, words were indistinct and the production of the recording was quite simply poor. As one proceeds the reading becomes stronger and clearer. The annoying variations subside. By the end, Green’s reading had improved a lot. I have given the narration three stars.
October 27, 2022
4.5 easy read easy to visualize. With this being my third consumption of a work by Mr. Gaines, I’m realizing he always includes at least a nugget of a character(s) standing up for their rights and/or against injustice. I’ve also realized over the past few years that this behavior may be an innate part of my own character as well which is encouraging for me to get to the remaining authorings by him I haven’t yet. I believe in Catherine Carmier it may have been his least overt in doing this, but if it might be considered his specialty, with this novel he proved that he can significantly stray away and still create an enjoyable story.
May 27, 2025
So, we start here with the always-wooly debut. Catherine Carmier establishes Gaines’ supernatural ability to make the mundane read like what I imagine one of those potboiler/action procedural or programmatic Patterson or Clancy novels must be—by page two, maybe three, you are gill-hooked and, seemingly, already being swept along some rising current that is heading over a cliff. Or a 'storm drain swan dive' of the Harrison Ford in The Fugitive variety, if you will ("I don't care"). Damnedest thing, not much is actually occurring in Gaines’ fictional Bayonne, Louisiana. It is never more than small stakes against a wider human scale, just the handful of people that populate his books. In this example, Gaines may not have only established but accomplished his greatest feat of this magnetism by having the reader’s sense of dread alerted by, well, nothing. Seriously—almost nothing is happening...but you’re really INTO it. Neat ability.
Carmier can never earn the sort of ridiculous earnestness (no pun is unfun) of its plot about star-crossed lovers. People simply do not fall so fully and deterministically into ‘love’ as Gaines' principals here, leaving a good amount of the novel to function around plot points anyone not in junior high won’t find themselves muttering ‘bullshit’ rejoinders to once the 0-60 mph stakes start piling up. Still, if you are going for the Full Gaines—and I implore you to read it all or leave it all alone—Carmier is essential in establishing Bayonne, Gaines’ moral center, and the core tableau that would come to define the next 50+ years of his output.
Or, to resort to my usual musical analogizing as a way to say what I lack the critical, literary capacity for: Yep, it is as twee as Jad Fair. As fans of Jad and/or Half-Japanese will know, that also means that this total absence of guile is replaced with a 100% commitment to the radical belief in a Love platonic. Hey, shit—there’s nothing wrong with it, according to Martsch-ists.
Carmier can never earn the sort of ridiculous earnestness (no pun is unfun) of its plot about star-crossed lovers. People simply do not fall so fully and deterministically into ‘love’ as Gaines' principals here, leaving a good amount of the novel to function around plot points anyone not in junior high won’t find themselves muttering ‘bullshit’ rejoinders to once the 0-60 mph stakes start piling up. Still, if you are going for the Full Gaines—and I implore you to read it all or leave it all alone—Carmier is essential in establishing Bayonne, Gaines’ moral center, and the core tableau that would come to define the next 50+ years of his output.
Or, to resort to my usual musical analogizing as a way to say what I lack the critical, literary capacity for: Yep, it is as twee as Jad Fair. As fans of Jad and/or Half-Japanese will know, that also means that this total absence of guile is replaced with a 100% commitment to the radical belief in a Love platonic. Hey, shit—there’s nothing wrong with it, according to Martsch-ists.
March 15, 2023
Jackson has returned to his aunt's home after being gone for over ten years to get an education. She expects him to stay with her again and teach but he has other ideas. His aunt has devoted her time to earning the money to pay for his education and, so, he does not know how he is going to tell her that he plans to go elsewhere. He soon begins to distress her because he has given up his religion and she has very strong religious beliefs. Then, to really complicate things, he becomes entangled in a very ill-fated love affair with Catherine Carmier, who is extremely devoted to her father.
September 13, 2012
Catherine Carmier was a good book---but not as
good as Love and Dust. Of course, that is my
personal opinion.
It dealt with racial color,romance, and violence.
The thing that put me off was the characters'
communication "with their eyes". This occurred
too many times to seem possible.
To say that Catherine's family was dysfunctional
was putting it mildly. She was abnormally
attached to her father. See what you think
about this.
It was a sort of "romance" novel. I guess.
good as Love and Dust. Of course, that is my
personal opinion.
It dealt with racial color,romance, and violence.
The thing that put me off was the characters'
communication "with their eyes". This occurred
too many times to seem possible.
To say that Catherine's family was dysfunctional
was putting it mildly. She was abnormally
attached to her father. See what you think
about this.
It was a sort of "romance" novel. I guess.
June 30, 2024
I think I first learned of Ernest J Gaines when he died and got a bit of press from that. I hate it when that happens!
He was born in 1933 to a sharecropping family. Started picking cotton at the age of 9. At 14, he moved to California where his mother lived and began writing. He attended college, served in the Army, won a scholarship to Stanford and the rest is history. He won several awards and died in 2019.
Catherine Carmier was his debut novel. (He published 8 novels in all.) Jackson, a young man who had been to college in the North, returns to his hometown for a visit but does not intend to stay. It is a Louisiana town built around the site of an old plantation. The current population includes Blacks, Creoles, racist whites and various mixtures. Jackson himself is light-skinned.
In the course of his short time there he falls in love with Catherine Carmier. Her father is the son of a Black man who moved into the former overseer’s house from the plantation. This father is a complex, angry, paranoid man who keeps Catherine under close watch. She is of course beautiful, loves her father, but once she and Jackson fall in love and begin an affair, is totally conflicted.
It took me a while to sort out who was who, to trace the family lines, and to grow accustomed to the dynamics of the town. Jackson knows he cannot stay but does not want to leave Catherine behind. It gets messy and a bit melodramatic. But I was drawn into the tale because clearly from the beginning Ernest J Gaines was a natural born storyteller!
He was born in 1933 to a sharecropping family. Started picking cotton at the age of 9. At 14, he moved to California where his mother lived and began writing. He attended college, served in the Army, won a scholarship to Stanford and the rest is history. He won several awards and died in 2019.
Catherine Carmier was his debut novel. (He published 8 novels in all.) Jackson, a young man who had been to college in the North, returns to his hometown for a visit but does not intend to stay. It is a Louisiana town built around the site of an old plantation. The current population includes Blacks, Creoles, racist whites and various mixtures. Jackson himself is light-skinned.
In the course of his short time there he falls in love with Catherine Carmier. Her father is the son of a Black man who moved into the former overseer’s house from the plantation. This father is a complex, angry, paranoid man who keeps Catherine under close watch. She is of course beautiful, loves her father, but once she and Jackson fall in love and begin an affair, is totally conflicted.
It took me a while to sort out who was who, to trace the family lines, and to grow accustomed to the dynamics of the town. Jackson knows he cannot stay but does not want to leave Catherine behind. It gets messy and a bit melodramatic. But I was drawn into the tale because clearly from the beginning Ernest J Gaines was a natural born storyteller!
October 14, 2008
I read this book, originally published in 1964, for a great LEH-funded program at our public library exploring creole identity and experience. It was brilliant! While short (i.e., readable in an evening), the book is deceptively complicated. That is, you read it in a few hours but spend several more untangling the web of what you've just read. It tackles race, class, gender, parent/child relationships (esp. those of parent with child of opposite sex), urban/rural dichotomies, as well as the somewhat predictable opposition of faith vs. intellectualism in southern life. What's so terribly clever is that many of the seemingly irredeemable characters (e.g. Raoul) are actually tragic heroes with Achilles heel and all. Still others, including the compelling Madame Bayonne, are knowledgeable older women with some semblance of "the sight"--or perhaps just really perceptive people. And is Lillian simply stirring the pot, or an intentionally malevolent force in her parents' irrevocably unhappy marriage? The story is set in the 1960s with parallel worlds between the dysfunctional Creole father Raoul and his daughter Catherine (of the book's title) and her lover Jackson--just returned to Louisiana from a 14-year absence during which he was educated in California--and Jackson and his fundamentalist mother, Charlotte. Like most of the characters in the novel, Jackson is at a crossroads where he must decide which of several uncomfortable and downright uncertain tacks he will take. In addition, there are nifty parallels between cajun and creole cultures as parallel liminal identities during the Civil Rights era. Long story short, every character and the town in which they live occupies a state of transition and increased political unrest. It's a marvelous book with a real train-wreck of a blow out when Jackson and Catherine's father finally come to blows. Literally. Well written, one cannot help but wonder whether Jackson is the author's (Ernest Gaines, author of _The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman_ and _A Lesson Before Dying_) alter-ego. Read it and let me know what you think. Can't wait to read something else by Prof. Gaines.
June 26, 2020
J’ai été un peu déçue par ce roman que j’ai trouvé tarabiscoté pour pas grand chose. J’avais tellement aimé dites leur que je suis un homme qui était formidable que j’attendais plus/trop de celui-là. Par contre toujours intéressant la vision du sud des Etat Unis par un noir. Et la subtilité de noir ou blanc mais noir...!
August 22, 2015
Normally I love Gaines books. A Lesson Before Dying was one of the best books I have ever read. Catherine Carmier actually explores much of the same theme (young black educated man comes home, but doesn't intend to stay) as the later book, but it is clear that the author isn't as mature in his writing. The concepts are there, but not the ability to make us love the characters and care about their problems. It took me a long time to read this very short book because I could put it down and did many, many times. Even so, it is worth a read if you are interested in the topic of the life of black Americans in the south.
March 8, 2010
Stunning tale of jim crow at it's best.
June 24, 2013
Read the book, clearly not understanding half of the subtext. Finished the book and wondered, what happened? Perhaps I missed something, or maybe I'm not that smart.
December 7, 2013
An engaging story set in the Louisiana countryside in the sixties when the tension between races was palpable.
December 10, 2014
I adore Ernest Gaines, but it was obvious that this was his very first novel. The dialogue isn't great, the storyline was just okay. It was overeating though to see where he began it all.
May 5, 2019
Another gem from Ernest Gaines, a Louisiana treasure.
April 4, 2020
2.5
This book is like the first draft of a much better book.
Rating would be lower if not for the commentary on abusive families and emotionally abusive women.
This book is like the first draft of a much better book.
Rating would be lower if not for the commentary on abusive families and emotionally abusive women.
February 13, 2021
This was a great read!! I look forward to reading more by this author. Ernest Gaines knows how to draw you into his writing and keep you enthralled. A love story that is a bit different but deep regardless of the location and the time period. Mary Louise has a lot to think about. Charlotte has waited ten years for Jackson to return but will she accept the changes in him? Will Catherine make the right choice? Will Jackson stay or go back? Ten years can change a lot of things, both for the good and the not so good.
A compelling debut love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where blacks, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence.
After living in San Francisco for ten years, Jackson returns home to his benefactor, Aunt Charlotte. Surrounded by family and old friends, he discovers that his bonds to them have been irreparably rent by his absence. In the midst of his alienation from those around him, he falls in love with Catherine Carmier, setting the stage for conflicts and confrontations which are complex, tortuous, and universal in their implications.
A compelling debut love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where blacks, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence.
After living in San Francisco for ten years, Jackson returns home to his benefactor, Aunt Charlotte. Surrounded by family and old friends, he discovers that his bonds to them have been irreparably rent by his absence. In the midst of his alienation from those around him, he falls in love with Catherine Carmier, setting the stage for conflicts and confrontations which are complex, tortuous, and universal in their implications.
July 12, 2020
This was a hard book to get into but I kept trying.It seems to be overshadowed by Jackson's pick of who he should date. He ended up after being away from the area for a period of time dating Catherine Carmier who was a Creole and that seemed to have brought in the race or color problem into the picture. Add to this his family adhesiveness had changed or was it him who had changed by being gone. Living a different lifestyle may have given him a wider picture of the world and its people. Since this is my first book by this anther plan to read another book of his books for comparison or understand the writer's style.
December 25, 2023
Jackson is a great tragic hero. I did not want him to win and it was not natural to love him, but you sure do feel him as totally human.
Gaines writes a heck of a story, even if it’s too busy in the beginning. Frustrating and an easy-flow makes for a great follow-along. Good read!
Gaines writes a heck of a story, even if it’s too busy in the beginning. Frustrating and an easy-flow makes for a great follow-along. Good read!
November 30, 2019
3.5 stars. You can’t go home again. There can never be peace in a girl’s heart between her daddy and her lover.
November 6, 2020
I wasn't into it for most of the first half, but once I got a bit more than halfway,, I was hooked. Not something I would normally read, but was assigned for class.
January 2, 2021
These poor people! What a tragic, messed up story.
February 2, 2021
Out standing storytelling!
March 13, 2021
A captivating story of family and the love and struggles to be a part of something other than ourselves.
Sometimes we need to step back in time and culture to understand.
Sometimes we need to step back in time and culture to understand.
Read
August 24, 2021A little slow at times but I did enjoy this book. Maybe not as much as I did "A Lesson Before Dying".
July 2, 2023
Everything Ernest J. Gaines writes is brilliantly beautiful, as well as challenging.
January 20, 2024
Wow. Loved it.
May 11, 2025
The was fine but there were times I felt Gaines was trying to hold our hands over explaining why a character did or felt something.
June 22, 2025
I didn’t like wondering whether there was something incestual going on between the father & daughter, though heavily implied.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 18, 2025
That ending
Displaying 1 - 30 of 35 reviews