William Faulkner

Absalom, Absalom!

 

Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! is an allegorical novel about the US South around the time of the Civil War. It features a Virginia-born Scots-Irish upstart, Thomas Sutpen, who, via the West Indies, grows his wealth and power and settles in Mississippi. Various narrators patch together the tale of Sutpen’s stolen land, his plantation mansion, his neighbors, his wife, his destined-for-tragedy children, and the people he enslaved. Ultimately, familial and societal dysfunction, integrally entwined with power and privilege, unravel Sutpen’s dynastic hopes, and an unlikely character is the one left standing at the end.