Faulkner On and Off the Page

"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. ... [This book] 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. ... 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"--