Light in August

Light in August by William Faulkner is one of the great American novels — a complex, formally ambitious exploration of race, religion, sexuality, and the crushing weight of the past in the American South. Three narrative strands interweave: Joe Christmas, a man of uncertain racial identity whose entire life is shaped by the ambiguity of his origins; Lena Grove, a pregnant young woman walking through Mississippi in search of the man who abandoned her; and the Reverend Gail Hightower, whose life has been destroyed by a consuming obsession with the past. Faulkner writes with the intensity and linguistic density of his best work, demanding patience but rewarding it with an experience unlike anything else in American fiction. Published by Vintage, Light in August is essential Faulkner and essential American literature.