Reading Order
Light in AugustWilliam Faulkner Light in August Reading Order
William Faulkner's Light in August (1932) is the most accessible of his major novels — two storylines that move separately through Yoknapatawpha County until they briefly intersect: Joe Christmas, a man of ambiguous racial identity who has spent his life in violent conflict with a world that will not let him belong to either race, and Lena Grove, a pregnant woman of extraordinary serenity who walks across the state looking for the father of her child. The contrast between them — his darkness and her light — is Faulkner's most explicit statement of his moral vision.
Where to start
Light in August
Complete Light in August Book List
- 1Buy
Light in August
William Faulkner·1932·Start here if this is your first Faulkner — the most accessible of his major novels; the Joe Christmas and Lena Grove storylines provide both Faulkner's most tragic vision and his most serene, and the contrast makes his moral world immediately intelligible. - 2Buy
The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner·1929·The essential next Faulkner after Light in August — the Compson family's disintegration told through four radically different perspectives; more formally challenging than Light in August but the necessary step toward Faulkner's full achievement. - 3Buy
As I Lay Dying
William Faulkner·1930·Faulkner's most formally inventive short novel — fifteen narrators and the Bundren family's darkly comic journey to bury their matriarch; the ideal companion to Light in August for readers who want Faulkner's range of tonal registers from the tragic to the grotesquely comic. - 4Buy
Absalom, Absalom!
William Faulkner·1936·Faulkner's most ambitious novel and his masterpiece — the story of Thomas Sutpen's rise and fall, told through multiple unreliable narrators; the destination for Faulkner readers who have worked through the earlier novels and want the full formal challenge and the fullest expression of his Yoknapatawpha vision. - 5Buy
Native Son
Richard Wright·1940·Richard Wright's novel about Bigger Thomas — a Black young man in 1930s Chicago whose accidental killing of a white woman triggers the full violence of the racial system against him — is the most direct American parallel to Joe Christmas's story in Light in August: a Black man destroyed by the racial categories that American society insists he embody.
Light in August — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best order to read Faulkner's novels?
The most common recommended order is: Light in August first (most accessible), then The Sound and the Fury, then As I Lay Dying, then Absalom, Absalom!, then Go Down, Moses. This sequence moves from accessibility toward difficulty and from relatively conventional narrative to Faulkner's most challenging formal experiments. However, some readers prefer to start with As I Lay Dying, which is both formally innovative and the most immediately darkly comic of the major novels, making it engaging in a way that carries readers through its difficulty.
Who is Joe Christmas in Light in August?
Joe Christmas is one of the most tragic figures in American fiction — a man whose entire life is defined by the racial ambiguity that American society cannot accommodate. Raised in a white orphanage where he may or may not have been identified as 'Negro,' passing as white in some communities and as Black in others, never able to belong to either world, Joe's violence is partly the product of a society that has denied him any stable identity or community. His name (with its obvious initials) and his execution on a Friday suggest a Christ parallel that Faulkner deliberately built into the novel.
What does the title Light in August mean?
The title refers to a quality of light specific to August in Mississippi — a luminous, golden light that occurs in the late afternoons, the light that Faulkner associated with a particular melancholy and beauty of the late summer South. It also refers to Lena Grove's condition (to 'be light' in 19th-century usage meant to be about to give birth) and to the contrast between her luminous serenity and Joe Christmas's darkness. The multiple meanings work together to create the novel's characteristic tonal combination of beauty and violence.
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