conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide a description for a book titled A Gathering of Old Men about lt;b&gt;A, Gathering, Men&lt;/b&gt with the genre: Literature & Fiction, United States.. Start with the sentence 'isiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s, &lt;b&gt;A Gathering of Old Men&lt;/b&gt; is a powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: isiana sugarcane plantation in the 1970s, &lt;b&gt;A Gathering of Old Men&lt;/b&gt; is a powerful depiction of racial tensions arising over the death of a Cajun farmer at the hands of a black man. &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;"Poignant, powerful, earthy...a novel of Southern racial confrontation in which a group of elderly black men band together against whites who seek vengeance for the murder of one of their own."--&lt;i&gt;Booklist&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;"A fine novel...there is a denouement that will shock and move readers as much as it does the characters."--&lt;i&gt;Philadelphia Inquirer&lt;/i&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;&lt;i&gt;From the Trade Paperback edition.&lt;/i&gt;
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the first five paragraphs for this book.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Gathering of Old Men
  Old Toddy with his snagged-teef self looked at me and grinned, 'cause he thought Gram Mon had hurt my feeling when she told me to sit back down. I checked one of my fist, but he knowed I couldn't hit him, 'cause he had already caught me and Minnie playing mama and papa in the weeds, and he told me I had a year when I couldn't do him nothing no matter what he did me, and if I did he was go'n tell Gram Mon what he caught us doing. He told me he could grin at me all he wanted to, and he could hit me, and kick me, and pinch me (in church, or home, he didn't care), and he could steal my cake if he wanted to, or my candy if I had any, and he could lose all his marbles to me, and I better not take them back, and I better not gig his spinning top when we played gigging, 'cause if I did he was go'n tell Gram Mon what he saw me and Minnie trying to do in the weeds. He said it was go'n be like that a whole year, if I liked it or not. It started just 'fore Candy started calling Gram Mon, 'cause we had just come in to eat dinner when I heard her calling out there in the yard.
  Old Toddy and Minnie jumped up too, and Gram Mon looked over her shoulder and said, "Get back in there and eat them turnips. I called Snookum."
  Candy was standing in the yard close to the steps when I came out on the garry. She wore a white shirt and khaki pants and brown shoes with little gold buckles. Her hair was light brown and dark brown and cut short, almost short like a man's hair.
  I jumped down on the ground where she was, and she grabbed me by the shoulders with both hands. She leaned over and brought her face close to mine, and her eyes, the color of blue smoke, looked wild and scared. I was thinking I had done something wrong and she was mad at me for it.
  I shot out of the yard. When I hit the road, I saw the tractor in front of Mathu's house. The motor was running, I could hear it, I could see the smoke, but Charlie wasn't on the tractor. He had two big loads of cane hitched to the back of the tractor, but he wasn't on the tractor. On the other side of the road, in front of Mathu's house, I could see Candy's big black car shining in the sun. I knowed Candy didn't tell me to tell Mathu anything, but looked to me like since all them other people was gathering at his house, looked to me like he ought to know what was going on, too. So when I came up even with his house, I ran in the yard, and that's when I seen Beau. Beau was laying over there in the weeds all bloody.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide four more paragraphs.. End with the sentence ' He was walking fast, and rubbing both his fists.'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: Gil was a football man all the way, and eventually he would go pro, but what he wanted most while attending LSU was to be All-American along with Cal. It would be the first time this had ever happened, black and white in the same backfield—and in the Deep South, besides. LSU was fully aware of this, the black and white communities in Baton Rouge were aware of this, and so was the rest of the country. Wherever you went, people spoke of Salt and Pepper of LSU. Both were good powerful runners, and excellent blockers. Gil blocked for Cal on sweeps around end, and Cal returned the favor when Gil went up the middle. It drove the defense crazy, because both Gil and Cal carried the ball about the same number of times in a game and the defensive team didn't know which to look out for. Besides that, you had "Sugar" Washington at quarterback, and he was no slouch, either.
  Me? Well, I was no Sugar Washington. I was third-string quarterback. My name is Thomas Vincent Sullivan. My hair is red, my face is red, my eyes are green, and most people call me Sully. Others call me T.V.—especially the black guys on the team. Not for my initials necessarily, but for my avocation. I'm a television nut. A vidiot.
  While Gil was in coach's office, Cal and I stood outside talking about the game coming up the next day, LSU and Ole Miss. It would be the game of the year. We knew if we dumped her, nobody else could stop us, and we would host the Sugar Bowl game on New Year's Day. Already the people had filled all the motels and hotels from Baton Rouge to New Orleans. The national press was covering the game. No matter where you went, that's all the people were talking about. If you were pro-LSU—and you were crazy if you were not—they said there was no possible way to stop Salt and Pepper. If you were anti-LSU, or pro-Ole Miss—and there were thousands of people from Mississippi who had come down for the game—they said that all Ole Miss had to do was stop one or the other, Salt or Pepper, and victory would be theirs to take back home. This kind of talk had been going on the past month, and now there was only a little more than twenty-four hours—thirty hours—before the whole thing would be settled. If you know anything about Louisiana weather, you know there's a lot of lightning and thundering before the big storm comes. Well, the big storm was going to be tomorrow night at eight o'clock, but the lightning and thundering had been going on for a month already, and nobody expected it to let up till the last moment.
  After being in coach's office about ten minutes, Gil came back out, and went right by Cal and me like we weren't even standing there. I thought he had forgotten where he had left us, and I called to him. But he kept on going. Cal and I looked at each other a second, and went after him. He was walking fast, and rubbing both his fists.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Provide the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: As I said, the trial went on for three days, and it was orderly most of the time. But every now and then one of the old black fellows, arm in sling, or forehead bandaged, knowing he was in the public eye, would go just a little overboard describing what had happened. Besides, he would use all nicknames for his compatriots—Clabber, Dirty Red, Coot, Chimley, Rooster. This would bring the court to laughing, especially the news people, who took the whole thing as something astonishing but not serious. No one else laughed nearly as much as the news people did; that is, until Mapes took the stand a second time to explain exactly where he was during the shooting. Before, he had told the court that he was somewhere in the yard. But now the D.A. wanted to know exactly where in the yard. Mapes refused to answer. Judge Reynolds cautioned that if he did not answer he could be charged with negligence of duty, seeing that two men had been killed. Mapes answered, but only for the D.A. to hear. The D.A. demanded that he speak loud enough so that the entire court could hear him. Mapes looked at the D.A. with those hard gray eyes, as if he were about to spring out of that chair and punch him, but instead said: "The whole fight, I was sitting on my ass in the middle of the walk. Luke Will shot me, and I was sitting on my ass in the middle of the walk. Now, is that loud enough?" And he got up from the witness chair and returned to the other seat. That's when everyone in the courtroom started laughing, including Judge Reynolds. The people passing by out on the street must have thought we were showing a Charlie Chaplin movie in there. That happened the morning of the third day, and until that evening when the trial finally ended, people were still laughing. Mapes, with his left arm in a sling, stayed red all day, and would probably stay red for years to come.
  The jury deliberated three hours, then returned with the verdict. After reading it and studying it for a moment, the judge told all defendants to rise, black and white alike. He said since the two men who had killed were both dead, being the same two who had killed Beau and shot Mapes, he could not pass judgment over them, but ask that their souls rest in peace. But for the others, he said he was putting all of them on probation for the next five years, or until their deaths—whichever came first. He said that meant he was taking away their privilege of carrying any kind of firing arm, rifle, shotgun, or pistol, or being within ten feet of anyone else with such weapons. (That was like telling a Louisianian never to say Mardi Gras or Huey Long.) He said if he heard once that any of the defendants picked up a gun, or was within ten feet of anyone with such weapon, he would send that person to prison for the rest of his natural-born life. He asked if there were any questions. There were no questions, and he slammed down the gavel and said court was adjourned.
  Candy and I went out of the courtroom and stood out on the steps and watched the people leave. She asked Mathu if he wanted her to take him back home. He told her no; he told her Clatoo was there in the truck, and he would go back with Clatoo and the rest of the people. The old truck was parked in front of the courthouse, and we watched them all pile in. Candy waved goodbye to them. I felt her other hand against me, searching for my hand; then I felt her squeezing my fingers.
  A compelling love story set in a deceptively bucolic Louisiana countryside, where blacks, Cajuns, and whites maintain an uneasy coexistence.
  In St. Adrienne, a small rural black community in Louisiana, the Reverend Phillip Martin comes face to face with the sins of his youth in the person of Robert X, a young, unkempt, vaguely sinister stranger who arrives in town for a mysterious "meeting" with the Reverend.