Thomas Sutpen arrives in Jefferson, Mississippi, with some slaves and a French architect who has been somehow forced into working for him. The final effect leaves the reader more certain about the attitudes and biases of the characters than about the facts of Sutpen's story. Finally, Quentin relates the story to his roommate Shreve, and in each retelling, the reader receives more details as the parties flesh out the story by adding layers. Quentin's father then fills in some of the details to Quentin. Rosa initially narrates the story, with long digressions and a biased memory, to Quentin Compson, whose grandfather was a friend of Sutpen's. This results in a peeling-back-the-onion revelation of the true story of the Sutpens. The narration of Rosa Coldfield, and Quentin's father and grandfather, are also included and re-interpreted by Shreve and Quentin, with the total events of the story unfolding in nonchronological order and often with differing details. The story is told entirely in flashbacks narrated mostly by Quentin Compson to his roommate at Harvard College, Shreve, who frequently contributes his own suggestions and surmises. Plot summary Ībsalom, Absalom! details the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a white man born into poverty in western Virginia who moves to Mississippi with the dual aims of gaining wealth and becoming a powerful family patriarch. In 2009, a panel of judges called Absalom, Absalom! the best Southern novel of all time. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it is a story about three families of the American South, with a focus on the life of Thomas Sutpen.Ībsalom, Absalom!, along with The Sound and the Fury, helped Faulkner win the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 1949. Absalom, Absalom! is a novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936.

Absalom absalom book