This is a quintessential 'southern gothic' novel – it's really good, but a bit too long for my tastes relative to the amount of character/plot we get. Really instills the sense of “everybody’s business is everybody’s business in the south”. It's a lot of very clever commentary on a number of things that were ripe 100 years ago. I can see how it would've been a smash hit in the 20s.

features single most horrifying excerptable quote, which appears in various forms in his earlier works, but finds its monstrous apotheosis here:

Memory believes before knowing remembers. Believes longer than recollects, longer than knowing even wonders. Knows remembers believes a corridor in a big long garbled cold echoing building of dark red brick sootbleakened by more chimneys than its own, set in a grassless cinderstrewnpacked compound surrounded by smoking factory purlieus and enclosed by ten food steel-and-wire fence like a penitentiary or a zoo, where in random erratic surges, with sparrowlike childtrebling, orphans in identical and uniform blue denim in and out of remembering but in knowing constant in the bleak walls, the bleak windows where in rain soot from the yearly adjacenting chimneys streaked like black tears.

The story revolves around four characters:

• Naive & innocent Lena Grove, the pregnant woman in search of her absent soon-to-be baby daddy, who treks from Alabama to Mississippi where she's sure she'll find him

• Byron Bunch, the mild mannered nice guy who Lena is mistakenly directed to since his is the closest name to 'Burch'

• Lucas Burch/Joe Brown, the absent father who is something of a rapscallion. He's taken another name (doesn't want to be found) and has partnered up with one Joe Christmas bootlegging on the side

• Joe Christmas, a man who believes to be part negro and is deeply ashamed of this fact.

The first chapter follows Lena's travels to find Burch, told from the perspective of some generous, but cold southern folk who give her some money and send her on her way. As she arrives in Jefferson (a small milling city in Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County), the man driving her along comments on a house burning in the distance (a common occurrence in Jefferson!).

The following chapter is told mainly from Byron's perspective as he describes the arrival of Christmas 3 years prior who is mysterious and dresses more nicely than he ought considering his employment alongside Bunch at the mill. 6 months prior to Lena's arrival, another man (Joe Brown) is hired at the mill. He gets involved with Christmas's bootlegging business (in the woods near a cabin near an old plantation owned by one Ms. Burden) and shortly after, both men quit. Byron recounts all this to Lena while taking care of her (he does not mention that Brown is likely Burch, even though he suspects as much).

In the third chapter, we learn of Reverend Hightower who's down bad dealing with some scandal caused by his late wife who killed herself in Memphis. Hightower recounts her slow, painful, and public decline leading to her institutionalization, release and then fall/jump from a window. The town (and its KKK members) tried to rid themselves of Hightower ("it just ain't right for the man to stay, after all that's happened, and all that's happened to him") going so far as harassing his black cook, and beating Hightower directly. Byron finds him now in Jefferson. The matter of fact portrayal of racism is pretty harrowing.

Chapter four sees the continuation of Byron's discussion with Hightower. We get a lot of important details about the going's on of Jefferson, MS at the hands of Byron. Brown and Christmas are holed up in a cabin near the Burden plantation, and Christmas sneaks off into Ms. Burden's house. He confesses his confused feelings for Lena who is boarding with him. And lastly, he describes the central point of mystery in the novel. A fire breaks out in Joanna Burden's house, and Byron relays what he knows about the vent according to a passerby who saw the smoke, ran inside and found a severely intoxicated Brown who's guarding the upstairs. Upstairs, Ms. Burden is partially decapitated. Brown alleges that it was Christmas that done it – and becomes insistent about helping the Sheriff's department catch that bastard (things look really bad for Brown himself).

This chapter colors in some more details about what all led up to the fire, specifically between Brown and Christmas, from Christmas's PoV (thus validating what we know from Byron's second hand sources) – at a minimum a physical altercation (Christmas being hostile and defensive about his race, Brown being too curious for his own good) between the two men, relations with Joanna, and then some bootlegging. Whilst walking about the town feeling like an outsider amongst both the blacks and the whites, Christmas cuts off his buttons expertly, surgically, almost like someone's head maybe? idk...

Chaptah siyux – starts get Faulknerian widdit: "Memory believes before knowing remembers," and other mental gymnastic rhetorical phrases to send a guy mad. We learn of Christmas's past, growing up as an orphan. He gets caught eavesdropping on adult conversation (shades of Benjy hearing important stuff, but not being able to articulate it well for the reader). Joe is called some choice slurs which instill the childhood trauma of fear of being even part-black (miscegenation was illegal in some states till Loving v. Virginia '67). Joe is adopted by Mr. McEachern who is a hardass.

Chapter 7 is more boy Christmas, reinforcing our mental model of his adopted father as a hard dude to love or appreciate. He is beaten by Mr. and fed by Mrs. McEachern, more misguided internalization of his black ancestry. Flash-forward 6 years to when he's 14 and participates in a gang-rape of a poor 14 year old black girl. When it's Joe's turn, though, he starts kicking and beating her. Joe returns home to get an asswhooping (sometimes just because) from Mr. McEachern. When he's 18, Joe sells a cow he'd been raising and lies about it to McEachern who punches Joe until he stops the old man.

8 – Christmas gets in the habit of sneaking out of the house to go partay & hookup with a waitress he's got the hots for (Bobbie). Flashing backward to age 14 where Joe learned about menstruation, he attempts to return a nickel owed to Bobbie for coffee he couldn't afford a few months back. She takes this as an advance her her sexually, and rather than get offended, declines because it's that time of the month. Joe vomits (lol – probably something to do with the memories from the shed, but still lol). They have sex the following week and Joe starts to steal Mrs. McEachern's hidden money to give to the waitress (w/o realizing that he's paying for her he just thinks it's a nice gesture). Bobbie is made fun of for "giving it up" for Joe, and Joe confesses that he's got "nigger blood" in him. Joe sees her at her place of residence with another man, next time Joe sees her he glasses her. She apologizes and explains she's a hooker. Silly poor Joe, doesn't end up minding.

9 – Mr. McEachern follows Joe one evening to a dance. He confronts Joe for sneaking out and calls Bobbie a Jezebel, a Harlot. Joe hits him with a chair. They flee, and Bobbie angrily hits Joe in the face. Joe tells her he'll meet her in town. He takes McEachern's horse back home, steals all of Mrs. McEachern's money, and then heads to the place where Bobbie stays. He's stopped by the man of the house (her pimp?) and a stranger who asks if Joe killed a man. Joe says idk but he came with a dowry to marry Bobbie. Bobbie is still pissed with him, throws the money, calls him a slur, and then the other men shrug and then beat him up.

10 – Joe spends the next 10 years of his life running from town to town until he winds up on Joanna Burden's (an abolitionist) doorstep.

11 - Joe's first night with Joanna, after many quiet and boring nights of dinner between them. We learn a bit about Joanna's background (through a lengthy family history).

12 – back to the present-ish date we learn more of Christmas's relationship/relations with Burden as she passes through several phases of affection: jealousy, lovey dovey, pregnancy. Joe expects her to ask her to marry him, but she doesn't – he (despite having no parents himself), doesn't contact her for two months. He effectively swaps her out for Joe Brown lol. When he does see her, their relationship is cold. She implores him to pray with her, and he speaks in the past perfect tense about his plans to kill her saying "I had to do it" before he's dunnit. She pulls a gun on him, and the chapter abruptly cuts to Christmas stopping a car & accosting a couple w/o realizing that he was waving a gun at them to force them to let him in their car. He gets out, realizes the gun (both chambers still loaded) and throws it away.

Thirteen – we pick up at the burning Burden house (presumably Joe Christmas has fled, but maybe not shot Joanna?). Joanna, suspecting her imminent death, left a note with a $1,000 reward for the capture of her murderer. Brown goes to the sheriff to collect the reward for asserting that Christmas (nowhere to be found) is the murderer. The chapter cuts to Byron and Hightower, discussing the very pregnant Lena and Byron's feelings for her. Lena goes to Brown/Burch's cabin, since she's his, and so its hers too.

14 – The deputy here of the woman camped out in Christmas's/Brown's cabin, and decide not to tell Brown (Burch). Someone shows up to report a sighting of a violent black man who's face was white causing a ruckus at a church. Joe hides out and escapes away from Jefferson, going increasingly mad.

15 – Joe is captured, but we learn of this through two characters who are revealed to by his grandparents, who are just as bad/good respectively as the McEachern's were.

16 – Byron goes to Hightower to discuss the arrest of Christmas who is now in jail in Jefferson with Brown who is also suspect. Hightower laments that his life continues to be ruined by women (I don't think Faulkner saw the irony here). Mrs. Hines goes to the jail to explain Joe's heritage. Their daughter Milly slept with a mexican from the traveling circus, Mr. Hines was convinced he was black and sought an abortion for his daughter after killing the man. He beat the first doctor, then went to another town to solicit a doctor but wound up getting jailed for brandishing a gun at a church service hollering about white supremacy. Milly died giving birth to Joe, and Doc Hines took the child to Memphis and left him on someone's doorstep. Doc Hines believes he's channeling God's divine will this whole chapter which is entertaining and scary.

17 – Lena's gives birth, but in the absence of Hightower to deliver the child, Doc Hines does. Mrs. Hines confuses Lena and her baby for Milly/Joe. Byron goes to tell Joe Brown he's a father (and a huge fucking deadbeat, he mainly wants to be the niceguy and let everyone draw their own conclusions so he can live happily ever after with Lena).

18 – Byron quits his job and prepares to leave town after Lena declined his marriage proposal. He decides to blow up the spot in a truly niceguy way, sending Joe to go see Lena. The deputy (my fav character) is ripe with witty quips to silence Joe as he takes him to see "a reward." Joe commences lying as soon as he sees Lena + child, and escapes out a window to flee. He sends a black child back to town to collect his reward for him (insane behavior to escape + ask for your reward). Byron has been tracking him all throughout – Byron is nihilistic with white knight rage, knowing he's going to get his ass beat, but attacking Brown anyways. Even with the drop on Brown, Byron does indeed get his ass kicked. Byron awakens to learn that Christmas has been killed back in Jefferson.

19 – we learn of how Joe escaped in the first place, played ring around the rosy with a local milita, hid out in Hightower's place. This chapter is pretty funny, as Faulkner makes fun of racists, but in a grim way, they got what they want by catching and killing (lynching) Joe. The racist guy who drummed up the militia because he was restless shoots Joe several times and castrates him before he's dead.

20 – Hightower is haunted by memories and phantoms alike.

21 – two more auxiliary characters are catching up on each other's days. The man tells about how he gave a woman, a man, and their baby a ride (Lena, Byron, and baby). It sounded awkward since they were clearly unmarried and not mutually affectionate.

-- general observations

From the outset, and continuing through the novel, I'm struck by Faulkner's fascination with perception and counter-perception. Many folks anticipate each other's reactions and vice-versa even just in casual conversation.

Anecdotal accounts are rich with details that their teller's wouldn't have, but maybe the person they learned the details from might've – and Faulkner does a really good job of blending narratives so that it becomes hard to discern if its the 3rd person, the passerby/irrelevant character, or the main PoV who's telling the story.

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