This episode marks the fourth visit by Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature and Chair of Public Understanding of the Humanities at the School of Advanced Study in the University of London. Her previous episodes features books by Nella Larsen, Anita Loos and Gayl Jones. As a well as working as a critic, prize-judge, TV and radio pundit, Sarah is also the author of books on Marilyn Monroe, F. Scott Fitzgerald and her most recent published in paperback earlier this year by Bloomsbury, Behold, America - a history of America First and the American Dream, called ‘excoriating and brilliant’ by Ali Smith and which inspired historian Dan Snow to call Sarah his ‘number one contributor when it comes to US politics’. The book under discussion is one of the great classics of 20th century American literature, Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner first published in 1936 by Random House, and widely considered to be one of the novels that won Faulkner the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The episode also features John enjoying the smart, funny collection Sweet Home by Wendy Erskine and Andy offering another of his inimitable mash-ups, this time a combination of a short story by Austrian novelist Thomas Bernhard and NEU!

Books mentioned:

William Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom!; The Sound & the Fury; As I Lay Dying; Light in August; Sanctuary
Sarah Churchwell - Behold!, America: A History of America First & the American Dream; Careless People
Gayl Jones - Corregidora
Wendy Erskine - Sweet Home
Thomas Bernhard - The Voice Imitator; The Loser; My Prizes; Wittgenstein’s Nephew
Toni Morrison - Beloved
James Baldwin - Nobody Knows My Name

Other links:

NEU! ‘Fur Immer’
Barton Fink (2005) DVD
The Paris Review - The Art of Fiction 12: William Faulkner
William Faulkner on Absalom, Absalom!
Serge Gainsbourg - ‘Requiem pour un con’
Film of William Faulkner in Oxford, Mississippi (1952)
William Faulkner on J.D. Salinger