I Used to Think Faulkner Was a Monster

When I was a kid, we used to go to my maternal grandmother’s house for Christmas and Easter. I had one Christian and (still have) one Jewish grandma, so we divided up the holidays. Somehow Thanksgiving became a Jewish holiday, but that’s another story. Anyway, my sister and I always stayed in a room that used to belong to two of my aunts when they were kids. At the head of each bed is a kind of long alcove-shelf in the wall, lined with books from when the aunts were in high school and college. The most prominent book on my shelf, because of the design of the spine (“Design of the Spine” sounds like a terrible mystery novel doesn’t it?) was a paperback Faulkner anthology. It was pea green, with FAULKNER written in what looked like salmon-colored streaks of blood. In fact the font was almost identical to that of Helter Skelter, the book about the Manson Family that grandma had in the den.

As a kid, I assumed that FAULKNER was a monster, like FRANKENSTEIN(‘s monster) or DRACULA. Sometimes, before going to sleep, I had to turn the FAULKNER book around backwards, so the scary name faced the wall.

Ironically, I fanatically love Faulkner now. He’s definitely not warm and cuddly, but he won’t come after you with an axe, either.