Becoming Faulkner: The Art And Life Of William Faulkner

William Faulkner was the greatest American novelist of the twentieth century, yet he lived a life marked by a pervasive sense of failure. Throughout his career, he remained haunted by his inability to master a series of personal and professional challenges: his less-than-heroic military career; the loss of his brother in an airplane crash; a disappointing stint as a Hollywood screenwriter; and a destructive bout with alcoholism. In this imaginative biography, Philip Weinstein--a leading authority on the great novelist--targets Faulkner\u27s embattled sense of self as central to both his life and his work. Weinstein shows how Faulkner\u27s troubled interactions with time, place, and history--with antebellum practices and racial division--take on their fullest meanings in his fiction. Exploring the resonance of his own unpreparedness, Faulkner invented a singular language that captured human consciousness under stress as never before. Becoming Faulkner joins Faulkner\u27s life and art in a bold new way, giving readers a full vantage from which to better understand this twentieth-century literary genius