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Faulkner On and Off the Page
Faulkner On and Off the Page
Essays in Biographical Criticism
Though numerous biographies have been published on William Faulkner, readers are often presented conflicting interpretations of his life and work. Faulkner’s view of himself and his own family was mercurial, and it is widely acknowledged that Faulkner was an unreliable narrator of his own life. As a result, biographies of Faulkner echo and complicate the multitude of ways he portrayed himself, accepting that truth—if it exists—is subjective. Like his work, Faulkner’s own life, then, is not only open to different readings but welcomes them within the landscape of his oeuvre.
Faulkner On and Off the Page acknowledges the challenges of “factifying” a life into a textual narrative, while also emphasizing the potential for biography to establish a throughline that traces how literature emerges from life and, in turn, shapes the life narrative Faulkner constructed for himself. Unburdened by the sanctity of the written word, Faulkner embraced mutability and perpetual evolution. This process of reinvention also manifests within the pages of Faulkner’s biographies, as each biographer brings a unique context and perspective shaped by generations of Faulkner scholars.
Rather than thinking of Faulkner as exclusively the great high modernist who strayed to Hollywood when he needed the money and stayed home when he didn’t, this book portrays an unsettled writer incessantly on the move incorporating what only looked like alien elements into his work, while maintaining a public persona that disparaged anything that did not fit the narrative of the novelist he created in interviews, essays, and speeches. This book attempts to carry on the work of finding the man on the page even as he is shaping a life off of it.
Rollyson is the foremost living authority on Faulkner’s life and career. This book enhances that reputation.
Carl Rollyson is professor emeritus of journalism at Baruch College, CUNY. He is author of many biographies, including Sylvia Plath Day by Day, Volumes 1 & 2; William Faulkner Day by Day; The Last Days of Sylvia Plath; A Real American Character: The Life of Walter Brennan; Hollywood Enigma: Dana Andrews; and Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress, Revised and Updated. He is also coauthor (with Lisa Paddock) of Susan Sontag: The Making of an Icon, Revised and Updated. His reviews of biographies have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and New Criterion. He also writes a column on biography twice a week for the New York Sun.
Introduction: Life as a Text and the Text as Life
Part One: Faulkner and Biography
Building a Better Biography
The Historians of Yoknapatawpha
Biographical Fiction: A Faulknerian Novel
Interview with Taylor Brown
The Foreigner in Faulkner
Counterpull: Estelle and William Faulkner
“Sole Owner and Proprietor”: William Faulkner and Jean Stein
Reminiscing about William Faulkner at the University of Virginia: A Biographer’s Outtakes
Part Two: Faulkner, Politics, and History
Faulkner’s Conservatism
Faulkner the Antifascist
Faulkner as Futurist
War No More: The Revolt of the Masses in A Fable
Part Three: Faulkner and Hollywood
Recreating Absalom, Absalom!: Revolt in the Earth
Faulkner’s Shadow: Hollywood, Hemingway, and Pylon
The Stories of Temple Drake
“Tomorrow” and Tomorrow: Faulkner into Film
The Reivers: On and Off the Screen
Part Four: Faulkner and Race
The White Man’s “Negro” in Faulkner Country
The Twilight of Man in “Delta Autumn”
“Shooting Negroes”
Caste from a Faulknerian Perspective: Intruder in the Dust
What Faulkner Could Not Imagine: The Life of James Meredith
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index
