Absalom, Absalom!

The most ambitious novel of the greatest American writer of his generation. A story about a man who built a dynasty, destroyed his family, and haunted the South for a century.

William Faulkner’s most complex and rewarding novel is a story told by four voices about Thomas Sutpen, a poor white boy from the West Virginia hills who came to Mississippi with nothing and built a plantation, and then watched it all burn.

Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, in 1833 with a gang of slaves and a French architect. He builds a mansion in the middle of nowhere. He marries the daughter of the local judge. He has two children: Henry and Judith. Then he discovers that his son has a Black wife—and that his first wife, whom he abandoned, was part Black. He rejects his son. The family collapses. The Civil War destroys the plantation. Sutpen dies in a brawl. The novel’s narrators—Quentin Compson, his father, his grandfather, and Sutpen’s former mistress—try to piece together what happened. They cannot agree. The story changes with each telling.

This is Faulkner at his most ambitious and demanding: a novel about race, class, and the curse of the South—the past that never dies, the story that cannot be told straight. Absalom, Absalom! is Faulkner’s masterpiece.

• Published in 1936, widely considered Faulkner’s greatest novel

• The title is taken from the Old Testament: “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

• Features Quentin Compson (from The Sound and the Fury) as the primary narrator, trying to understand the South’s curse

Available in multiple formats:

• Paperback & Hardcover: Beautifully designed print editions presenting the complete, unabridged text made to last.

• Ebook: DRM-free EPUB compatible with Kindle, Kobo, Apple Books, and all major e-readers.

• Audiobook: Professionally narrated, complete and unabridged, available on all major audiobook platforms.

A beautifully crafted edition for your shelf, your device, or your ears—or the perfect gift for anyone who knows that the past is never dead. It is not even past.

About the Author

William Faulkner (1897–1962) was an American novelist and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Born in New Albany, Mississippi, he spent most of his life in Oxford, Mississippi, the model for his fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Absalom, Absalom! was his ninth novel, published in 1936. Faulkner wrote the novel slowly, struggling to shape its complex narrative structure. The novel’s four narrators—Quentin Compson, his father, his grandfather, and Rosa Coldfield—each offer a different version of the Sutpen story, forcing the reader to piece together the truth. The novel is often considered Faulkner’s most challenging work; it is also considered his greatest. His other major works include The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and Go Down, Moses (1942). He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1949 and the Pulitzer Prize twice. He died of a heart attack in 1962.