After the publication of Light in August in 1932, race and history were no longer a given, a prologue to William Faulkner’s life and work, but instead became a problematic part of his inheritance as a southerner and as a writer with a claim on the world’s attention. He had to write a new kind of history in which history itself is the intense focus of his attention, as in Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses, and Requiem for a Nun, or a community’s past had to be retold and reshaped and debated, as in the Snopes trilogy. A Fable and The Reivers may seem to stand aside from this historiographical dynamic, but A Fable applies the Yoknapatawpha novels’ approach to historical understanding to a world-changing event, the First World War, which motivated Faulkner in the 1920s to see his native region in terms of global events, and The Reivers not only recapitulates much of Yoknapatawpha history, as do Collected Stories, The Town, and The Mansion, but Faulkner’s last novel also returns to the motive force of The Unvanquished and Intruder in the Dust as part of his recalibration of history and its impact on several generations that are embodied in The Reivers’ first words: “Grandfather said.” Intruder in the Dust, the novel and the film, brought new audiences to William Faulkner.
Hollywood had a significant impact on the trajectory of Faulkner’s fiction after 1932. Novelists of his generation often worried that Hollywood would change them for the worse, that they would be forced to produce made-to-order scripts for an industry that viewed writers as disposable, interchangeable, and at the command of producers and studio heads. Hollywood was never home, where the writer went when he was through with the picture business, or it was through with him. Although Faulkner might mount a seemingly invincible facade, Hollywood got to him, forcing him to improvise and sometimes to take his screenwriting back to Oxford, but it also provided the impetus for novels like Pylon and The Wild Palms that took the measure of Hollywood, creating a new kind of history that arose out of his collaborations with other writers. They do not appear by name in the novels, except for Sergei Eisenstein, but those writers’ room meetings about story values, dialogue, and characterization had their impact on the scenarios that characters like V. K. Ratliff, Gavin Stevens, and Chick Mallison concoct. Faulkner did not publicly concede to Hollywood any of his fictional territory, but Yoknapatawpha characters and settings appear in his screenplays “War Birds,” “Revolt in the Earth,” and “Country Lawyer,” and A Fable grew out of his Hollywood work and talks with a Hollywood director and producer. Faulkner described screenwriting as an interruption of his novelist’s mission. But in truth that mission gradually changed the more time he spent in Hollywood, so that when he went out into the world again he produced a different sort of fiction. This is the story of how those changes got made and how the man and the artist emerged recognizably as the figure he had always been and yet a transformed writer all the same.
I began my work on Faulkner as an undergraduate, inspired by M. Thomas Inge at Michigan State University, and then continued on with Michael Millgate at the University of Toronto, producing a dissertation and my first book, Uses of the Past in the Novels of William Faulkner. The debt owed to these fine scholars is immeasurable. I owe many other debts to Faulkner critics, which I have acknowledged in my narrative and notes.
Right from the beginning, when I had only a book proposal and a sample chapter to show, I had the invaluable support of Linda Wagner-Martin, who wrote in support of my work and has been a continuing inspiration. In the summer of 2014, during a stay in Oxford, I had the pleasure of lunching with Jay Watson, the Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies at the University of Mississippi, who patiently listened to my plans for a new Faulkner biography and provided much-needed encouragement and the invitation to give a keynote talk at the summer 2015 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. On that same trip, I met and interviewed Larry Wells, the husband of Dean Faulkner Wells, and a fount of information and contacts that I sorely needed. Larry generously put me in touch with William Lewis Jr., the current owner of Neilson’s Department Store, where Faulkner was a customer. Mr. Lewis knew Faulkner and was most welcoming and informative during our interview. Just as important was Tommy Freeland, another Larry Wells contact and the son of Phil Stone’s law partner. Mr. Freeland gave me a tour of the Stone law office and told me a good deal about his father’s dealings with William Faulkner. Through Larry I was also able to contact Sandra Baker Moore for her memories of the Faulkners and of what it was like for her to live next door to Rowan Oak in the 1940s, when her mother, Kate Baker, owned a dress shop in Oxford. I have been extremely fortunate to find those still living with memories of Faulkner, including Salley Knight, whose recollection of Faulkner in Virginia came to me via my contact with Scott Beauchamp.
Thanks to Jay Watson’s invitation to Gloria Burgess, who spoke at the 2016 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, I was able to interview her and continue a correspondence that has yielded a significant insight into Faulkner’s efforts to help people of color.
Steve Railton, who has done so much to further Faulkner studies with Digital Yoknapatawpha, helped me out at a crucial moment when a website went down and has been a strong supporter of my biography. I relied on the estimable Molly Schwartzberg, Curator of the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections at the University of Virginia, not only for much help with the vast Faulkner archive but also with connecting me to members of the university and Charlottesville community who had memories of William Faulkner. Ellie Sohm shared with me her University of Virginia undergraduate paper about Faulkner’s relationship with his daughter Jill at a crucial time in the development of my biography. Sara Barnes was a wonderful tour guide and all-around facilitator during my visit to the university to deliver the first William and Rosemary MacIlwaine Lecture in American Literature. That lecture, I’m happy to say, prompted an email to Richard Garcia from Donald Nuechterlein about his experience with William Faulkner in Iceland that was forwarded to me. After my lecture, “Faulkner’s Virginia Persona,” I had the pleasure of speaking with George Thomas about those Faulkner days on the University of Virginia grounds. Others in the audience for my lecture came forward with their own William Faulkner stories. I am grateful to all of them.
Robert Hamblin, former Director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University, has been an invaluable source of information as he guided me through their indispensable Faulkner collection. Christopher Rieger, the current Director, has been equally helpful and generous. He made available to me a grant that allowed extended stays at the Center for Faulkner Studies so that I could complete my research in a timely fashion. On the premises, I had the excellent help of Roxanne Dunne, and of the indispensable Tyson Koenig, who sorted out many of the photographs reproduced in this biography.
Archivist Rick Watson, the son of eminent Faulkner scholar James G. Watson, helped me navigate my way through the Carvel Collins Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin. Rick saved me a lot of time by expediting my access to the papers. I owe thanks as well to Ned Comstock at the Cinematic Arts Library, University of Southern California. I have known Ned since the mid-1980s, and he has remained an important source of archival material for many of my biographies. He has sent me copies of vital items that I did not know existed. Jenny Romero and the rest of the staff at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences have always proven a boon to my research, and that was true in this case as well, pointing me to a script not mentioned in previous accounts of Faulkner’s career. Todd Goddard at Utah Valley University hosted my talk on “Faulkner as Screenwriter” and secured funding for a trip to Salt Lake City so that I could examine the Faulkner-authored scripts in the Howard Hawks Collection at Brigham Young University.
Similarly, through a generous invitation from Faulkner scholar Stephen Hahn at William Patterson University, I was able to examine the important work Donald Philip Duclos did on William C. Falkner, the old Colonel.
Jennifer Ford, Jessica Leming, and Lauren Rogers, in Special Collections at the University of Mississippi Library, facilitated my work in its Meta Carpenter Wilde Collection and other choice items such as Faulkner’s handwritten script “Wooden Crosses,” a first-draft screenplay that became The Road to Glory. And thanks to Gerald Walton for helping me out on my interests in the Ole Miss golf course that Faulkner played on. I’m grateful to William D. Griffith for a splendid tour of Rowan Oak and for answers to my questions.
Elizabeth Sudduth, Director of the Irvin Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, University of South Carolina Libraries, made my visit to consult the Frederick R. Karl Archive and Malcolm Argyle Franklin Collection efficient and profitable.
Matthew Turi, Manuscripts Research and Instruction Librarian, Research and Instructional Services Department, Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library at the University of North Carolina, helped to facilitate my work in the Robert H. Moore Papers.
Meredith Mann in the Brooke Russell Astor Reading Room for Rare Books and Manuscripts at the New York Public Library helped me navigate through the Joel Sayre Papers, as did Mary Catherine Kinniburgh in the Berg Collection for various Faulkner items.
David Harper and Jessica Stock made my visit to the M. Thomas Inge Faulkner Collection at West Point a delight and an edification. I was able to follow Faulkner’s walking route to his talk.
Penny White, reference librarian, and the Digital Production Group at the University of Virginia Library aided in acquiring the volume 1 cover image and several of the images in the galleries.
Edward Perry and Marcus Gray, two Faulkner scholars, have stuck with me over several years, making important suggestions about items essential to this biography. I thank Patrik Andersson for answering my query about the correspondence between Faulkner and Else Jonsson, and John Waters for answering my questions about Jean Stein.
Other Faulkner scholars, including Ted Atkinson, Sarah Gleeson-White, Arthur Kinney, Claude Pruitt, D. Matthew Ramsay, Timothy Ryan, Stefan Solomon, and Sally Wolff-King have responded to my queries and have contributed to the completion of my biography. I’m grateful to Jack Elliott for sending me an advance copy of his valuable work on Faulkner’s last days, and for his last-minute corrections of material relating to Faulkner’s ancestry and his early years. I should have consulted Jack sooner.
For sound advice about matters related to Faulkner and publishing, I’m grateful to Craig Gill, the Director of the University Press of Mississippi.
My fellow biographers Jonathan Alter, James Atlas, Kate Buford, Betty Caroli, Mary Dearborn, Gayle Feldman, Anne Heller, Justin Martin, Marion Meade, Sydney Stern, Will Swift, and Amanda Vail have given me much good advice, encouragement, and items to mull over for this biography.
Thank you, Barbara Barnett, for helping me with my rudimentary French and figuring out a Faulkner caption, and William Crawley for speaking with me about Faulkner’s visit to Mary Washington University. And to Rosemary Clark, for untold great finds and research assistance, I am immeasurably indebted.
Several research award grants from Baruch College and the PSC-CUNY Research Fund made it possible to travel to archives and to conduct interviews for this book. Biography is an expensive endeavor, and without such help I don’t see how I could have taken on so many research projects.
I’m very pleased that my shrewd agent, Colleen Mohyde, and my astute editor, Eric Brandt, combined to make this a better book. To Susan Murray, my magnificent copyeditor, and to the vigilant Morgan Myers, my heartfelt thanks for making this book, line by line, and chapter by chapter, better than I could make it myself. And it is gratifying to say here how much I valued the support of the late Mark Saunders as Director of the University of Virginia Press.
Lisa Paddock, my wife and a wonderful Faulkner scholar, patiently listened to my plans for the biography and made many excellent suggestions. I’m sure it was a trial, at times, to put up with my obsession, but she has borne it pretty well.