The Wild Palms by William Faulkner
I was drawn to read this novel because Agnès Varda (a French director who is the subject of my honors thesis) cited it as what gave her “the desire to make cinema.” The novel is comprised of two separate narratives, which alternate from chapter to chapter. The chapters under the “Wild Palms” title tell the story of a passionate, extramarital love affair that you know is doomed from the start, while the chapters under the “Old Man” title recount the tale of a prisoner who gets washed away in a rowboat from prison during a powerful flood, with only a pregnant black woman and the desire to surrender as his company. This story structure results in a sort of rumbling, constant suspense, for when one narrative thread becomes taught with excitement, the other story appears as an equally exciting distraction. But this interesting narrative strategy isn’t the main reason why I recommend this book. Faulkner’s writing itself is a constant revelation, playing with degrees of conscious thought and the difficulty of expressing wordless ideas to even oneself, let alone to another character. Set mostly in the American South and West among a rough cast of characters, this novel could be compared to Steinbeck in its content, but in light of the writing style, which is both deeply psychological and frequently distracted, it might be a better comparison to say that The Wild Palms is like Steinbeck on LSD.
If you like this, you might like: Light in August by William Faulkner
You might like this if you like: John Steinbeck, e. e. cummings, Flannery O’Connor
Samantha Mitchell is an editor for the Rutgers Review.