Synopses & Reviews
This book is about the making of the writer William Faulkner. It is the first to inquire into the three most important women in his lifeand#8212;his black and white mothers, Caroline Barr and Maud Falkner, and the childhood friend who became his wife, Estelle Oldham. In this new exploration of Faulknerand#8217;s creative process, Judith L. Sensibar discovers that these womenand#8217;s relationships with Faulkner were not simply close; they gave life to his imagination. Sensibar brings to the foregroundand#8212;as Faulkner didand#8212;this and#8220;female world,and#8221; an approach unprecedented in Faulkner biography.
Through extensive research in untapped biographical sourcesand#8212;archival materials and interviews with these women's families and other members of the communities in which they livedand#8212;Sensibar transcends existing scholarship and reconnects Faulknerand#8217;s biography to his work. She demonstrates how the themes of race, tormented love, and addiction that permeated his fiction had their origins in his three defining relationships with women. Sensibar alters and enriches our understanding not only of Faulkner, his art, and the complex world of the American South that came to life in his brilliant fiction but also of darknesses, fears, and unspokens that Faulkner unveiled in the American psyche.
Review
and#8220;A remarkable work of sleuthing, researching, and interpreting. Sensibar has used every resource in print, and has buttressed all that information with countless oral interviews to provide a myriad of insights into Faulkner.and#8221;and#8212;Linda Wagner-Martin, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Review
"The portrait of Faulkner that emerges from this book is layered, complex, and absolutely fascinating. Sensibar offers a new way of apprehending his world and of understanding how he was shaped as a thinker and writer."and#8212;Thadious Davis, University of Pennsylvania
Review
"Exploring the emotional and creative energies Faulkner derived from his closeandnbsp;relationships with three generations of white and black women, Judith Sensibar provides a decidedlyandnbsp;original andandnbsp;revealing portrait of his life and his writing."and#8212;Eric J. Sundquist, author of
Faulkner: The House DividedReview
and#8220;We know a lot about William Faulkner's drinking, his philandering, his struggles with race, sexuality and history. We know much less about why Faulkner was so spectacularly talented and so spectacularly troubled. Judith Sensibar's magisterial new book tells how the fraught, obsessive relationships with the women in his life permeated every aspect of his art and life. Faulkner's critics and biographers too often dismiss or caricature his mother, hisandnbsp; "mammy," and his wife. But by uncovering important new information about Faulkner's family life, and integrating it with intelligent readings of his fiction and poetry, Faulkner and Love places Maud Butler, Caroline Barr, and his wife Estelle Oldham Faulkner back where they belong at the center of his work and illuminates the obsessions that impelled him to write the greatest novels of the 20th century.and#8221; and#8211; Diane Roberts, author of Dream State
Review
"A breakthrough account. . . . An indispensable addition to Faulkner scholarship. . . . [S]crupulously documented, brilliantly insightfulandnbsp; . . . one can easily see why these three essential women who touched him . . . should be given more than attention . . ." and#8212;Alexander Theroux, Boston Globe
Review
"For the first time, a scholar looks deeply and sensitively into William Faulknerand#8217;s relationships with the . . . women who were central in his life . . . [His] meticulous research shoot[s] holes in some myths . . . [and] will enrich our understanding of Faulkner and his world . . .'"and#8212;Lisa Howorth, Square Books
Review
and#8220;Sensibar's sensibility is that of a major literary critic, and this book serves to sustain that judgment. All future biographers of Faulkner must take into account her findings, and they should be grateful for the intelligent light she has cast on one of our most inexplicable and challenging authors.and#8221;and#8212;Thomas Inge, Richmond Times-Dispatch
Review
Chosen as an Outstanding Academic Title for 2009 by Choice Magazine
Review
". . . Those who think they know Faulkner biography are in for a few surprises. . . . Room must be made on the bookshelf of Faulkner biography for this exhaustively researched and brilliantly argued new study. . . . It will make several . . . earlier efforts irrelevant . . .and#8212;M. Thomas Inge, The Key Reporter
About the Author
Judith L. Sensibar is professor emeritus, Department of English, Arizona State University. She is the author of The Origins of Faulkners Art (1984), praised as a seminal work in Faulkner scholarship, and of numerous essays on Faulkner and other topics in literary studies. She lives in Chicago.