Light in August (Vintage International)

Read, read, read. Read everything trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read! You ll absorb it. Then write. If it is good, you ll find out. If it s not, throw it out the window. William Faulkner

Light in August, a novel about hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, features some of Faulkner s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, who is plagued by visions of Confederate horsemen; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.