Set in the 1970s, in Louisiana, however, the novel also explores the changes in racial attitudes that mark the post-civil rights era South. As Gaines illustrates, however, the New South is a different world. On a deeper level, however, Gaines suggests that the issue of race goes beyond the simplistic black-white appearances of the surface. In this respect, this novel is a direct response to Faulkner, who treated the subject of racial intermixing. For example, he presents us with a white woman, Candy, who has been raised largely in the black culture and who thus is a product of that culture.
Candy serves in the novel as a bridge between the two cultures.
The old-time separateness of the races is suggested not only by the Boutan group, but by the old black men of the community who are more than willing to take up arms against the old order. Whereas Faulkner presented the white perspective of Southern racial relations, however, Gaines is equally effective at presenting the African-American perspective. Each of the old men who arrive at Mathu's plantation home with their guns presents his own reason, his own history, to take such a bold action. Thematically, AGOM is about race. Specifically, however, it's a novel about the nature of community.