As I Lay Dying

Faulkner, William. As I Lay Dying. 2006. 267p. 411 mins. ISBN 9780739345382. Available both at FIC FAU on the library shelves and as an audiobook from Overdrive.

Addie Bundren is dying, and her last wishes are to be buried in her native town, Jefferson, Mississippi. She refuses to be put in the ground of the depressingly miserable farm where she spent her married life unhappily with Anse, her distant husband and five children with their own issues, wants, and desires.

Her eldest, 29-year old Cash, broke his leg and now walks with a pronounced limp. He is building her coffin outside by her window, so she can keep an eye on the progress and ensure that the casket is built properly. Her only daughter, 17-year-old Dewey Dell, runs the household and fans her to make her as comfortable as possible in the stifling July heat. Her second child, 27-year old Darl, only works when he wants to and generally tries to get out of it. Her middle child, Jewel, is in fact a half-brother to the others as he was conceived during an adulterous relationship, but he is his mother’s favorite. And the youngest, Vardaman, has not yet reached his teens.

When she finally dies, the whole family boards their wagon and begins the slow process of traveling towards Jefferson. Not wishing to be beholden to anyone, they sleep out in barns and in fields. A trip that should have taken two days stretches out to nine as the rains that fell on her death day have washed away the bridges leading to Jefferson on the other side of the river.

As they travel, each member of the family tells their story and explain the events that take place. Told from the perspective of fifteen different characters over the course of 59 chapters, a simple story of a death is peeled away to reveal so much more, from the intransigence of Anse to Jewel’s hot temper to Dewey Dell’s pregnancy, Darl’s insanity, and Cash’s tolerance for the foibles of his family. Arriving in Jefferson after adventures that include almost losing the coffin twice, the death of animals, the burning of a barn and another broken leg for Cash, the family is finally confronted with their own personal issues as they attempt to bury Addie.

Revolutionary when it was published in 1930, Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying continues to be one of the finest example of southern gothic cast of miserable characters in a backwater of a land and remains one of American literature’s classic tales.