Early in Faulkner the Southerner James Everett Kibler, Jr. notes that “Southern ways have to do with pressing terra firma. Barefoot is a good way to approach Faulkner.” This evocative advice goes to the heart of what Kibler attempts to accomplish in his semi-biographical study of the greatest of American novelists.
Over the decades since William Faulkner received the Nobel Prize, the study of his work has become an academic industry, and the flood of critical tomes combing through virtually every aspect of the Mississippian’s fictional world shows no signs of receding as university presses around the globe exploit the prestige of the Faulkner “brand.” Yet far too few authors know even the first thing about the American South as a lived experience.
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