Novels 1930-1935

AS I LAY DYING, a stream-of-consciousness novel narrated from 15 different points of view, depicts the Bundren family, a clan of poor whites who travel to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury their dead matriarch, Addie. This bleakly comic novel explores the nature of grief, community, and family. SANCTUARY is Faulkner's most notorious novel; its sensational subject matter was particularly disturbing to the inhabitants of his home town of Oxford, Mississippi, many of whom felt Faulkner presented a distorted picture of their community. The novel tells the story of Temple Drake, an Alabama debutante who falls under the influence of a sinister bootlegger named Popeye. In the introduction to "Sanctuary" (one of the few introductions he wrote), Faulkner admits that the book was "a cheap idea, because it was deliberately conceived to make money." (SANCTUARY was in fact his only best-seller.) Faulkner liked to boast that he wrote the novel in three weeks, but he also revised it extensively before final publication. LIGHT IN AUGUST is the compelling story of Joe Christmas, an orphan of unknown ancestry who believes himself to be part-black. Like so many of Faulkner's novels, this one deals with the importance of community, as well as the roles of race and gender in Southern life.