One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner by Jay Parini

Author:Jay Parini [Parini, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Author, Best 2015 Nonfiction, Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction, Retail
ISBN: 9780061751233
Google: B4undOxAl28C
Amazon: B000QTEA24
Publisher: Harper Collins
Published: 2009-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

Friends in Need

I own a larger parcel of [land] than anybody else in town and nobody gave me any of it or loaned me a nickel to buy any of it with and all my relations and fellow townsmen, including the borrowers and frank spongers, all prophesied I’d never be more than a bum.

—Faulkner to Robert Haas, June 7, 1940

In March, Faulkner discovered that his old friend Phil Stone had come on hard times. Stone was being sued, having inherited from his father and brother an estate that was harshly encumbered. His own mental condition was fragile; his wife, Emily, worried that he could not continue for long in his present state of anxiety, and she mentioned to Faulkner that their financial situation was dire. As was typical of him, Faulkner would never desert a friend, even though his own finances had once again turned shaky. But loyalty ranked among his finest traits, and Phil Stone—despite the fact that he had not been in Faulkner’s good graces during the past decade—had stood up for him on many occasions; so Faulkner loaned him the money to pull himself out of debt. He also continued to send small gifts of cash to Meta Rebner, who had temporarily returned to her husband, hoping the marriage might be rehabilitated.

For all his loyalty to friends and relations, the good citizens of Oxford still found him strange. The Eagle suggested, cynically, that his work was “vurry vurry high-brow” and wondered why he continued to write unpleasant things about them. “I think they remained deeply suspicious,” said his daughter, “right up until he won the Nobel Prize, maybe after that.” The mere fact that Time, a major middle-brow magazine, had devoted a cover story to him, didn’t change the mind of townsfolk, who began to worry about the tourists, who now came in increasing numbers to observe the little town that had become Jefferson.

Never one to rest on his laurels, Faulkner plunged ahead with the first volume of his Snopes trilogy during the winter and spring of 1939, writing with intensity, often completing five or six pages a day in his tiny handwriting. It was about this time that he discovered a brand of pipe tobacco that would give him considerable pleasure over the next decades, and doubtless contribute to his relatively early death. It was called A10528, a mixture of aromatic tobacco produced by Alfred Dunhill of London. Faulkner loved tobacco almost as much as he loved whiskey and horses: they were all parts of his authentic gentlemanly profile. One often sees pictures of Faulkner with a pipe in hand, especially in later years.

It was clear by April that The Wild Palms had become a strong seller. Bob Haas reported in April that sales had averaged about a thousand per week and would soon outdo Sanctuary. Faulkner’s finances should have been eased by this, but his commitment to Phil and Emily Stone was such that he would need even more cash than the royalties promised. In

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