The Reivers

One of Faulkner s comic masterpieces, The Reivers is a picaresque that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi. Eleven-year-old Lucius Priest is persuaded by Boon Hogganbeck, one of his family s retainers, to steal his grandfather s car and make a trip to Memphis. The Priests black coachman, Ned McCaslin, stows away, and the three of them are off on a heroic odyssey, for which they are all ill-equipped, that ends at Miss Reba s bordello in Memphis. From there a series of wild misadventures ensues involving horse smuggling, trainmen, sheriffs deputies, and jail.