It’s the birthday of William Faulkner (1897-1962), middle name Cuthbert, who became perhaps the greatest figure in Southern Gothic literature, to the point that all later Southern authors have been doomed to comparison. Faulkner received the Nobel Prize in 1949, and the prestigious PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction is partially named for him. (The “Faulkner” part.)

Twenty life points to anyone who actually knows anyone named Cuthbert.

Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, to Murry Cuthbert and Maud Butler Falkner and later added the “u” to his last name because reasons. His family moved to Oxford, Mississippi, when Faulkner was young where his father was a business manager for the University of Mississippi; Oxford was to become Faulkner’s model for his fictional town Jefferson in the fictional county of Yoknapatawpha. He didn’t like school and dropped out of high school, and his girlfriend Estelle Oldham broke his heart by marrying someone else, so in 1918 he joined the British Royal Air Force and began training in Canada just in time for the war to end. (The U.S. military had turned him down because at 5’5” he was too short. Evidently the British aren’t as picky. Who knew?) When he returned to Oxford, he pretended he’d seen wartime action even though he hadn’t, which just goes to show that you can’t trust fiction writers.

Back in Oxford, he took a few classes, told a few lies, published a few poems. He ran the university post office for a couple of years but was very lazy and tended to lose people’s mail, which is not what you want in a postmaster, so that didn’t last. In 1924, he published a book of poetry, The Marble Faun, followed by his first novel, Soldier’s Pay, in 1926. He published a couple more novels before his major works started to appear: his career really took off with The Sound and the Fury (1929), though the novel didn’t sell well immediately. The novel portrays the decay of a formerly aristocratic Southern family (financial ruin, moral decline, suicide…it’s kind of dark), and shows up on those “greatest novels of the 20th century” lists. His tragicomedy As I Lay Dying followed in 1930, as did his best-known short story, “A Rose for Emily” (published in Forum magazine).

By 1929, by the way, Estelle had divorced her first husband, and she and Faulkner married. The next year they bought Rowan Oak, an antebellum house in Oxford which is now Oxford’s main tourist attraction; the house was decaying (like a lot of Faulkner’s characters), and he spent time restoring it in the thirty years he was to live there. Faulkner and Estelle had a daughter in 1933 but the marriage was not a happy one. In the 30s Faulkner wrote some brilliant things, did some Hollywood screenplays for money, and had some affairs. His novel Absalom, Absalom! appeared in 1936, not long after Faulkner’s brother was killed when a plane that Faulkner had given him crashed. In the 40s Faulkner wrote Go Down, Moses (1942, a series of related stories), Intruder in the Dust (1948), the screenplays for To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, and had more affairs. He also got that Nobel Prize, and his acceptance speech is said to be one of the greatest Nobel speeches ever given. (Imagine the pressure: you’re a writer receiving the Nobel for brilliant writing, and you have to write an acceptance speech.)

Faulkner continued writing to the end of his life, including, notably, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962). He died at 64 of a heart attack, his health damaged by too much alcohol and “too many falls from horses too big for him” (britannica.com).

If you google Faulkner, you will find that in some of his photos (like this one here) he bears a striking resemblance to Peter Sellers. Which has nothing to do with his literary importance, but someone could probably get a dissertation out of it. (You’re welcome.)

Have a lovely Tuesday, for Pete’s sake choose a horse the correct size should you happen to go riding, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.