Light in August Audiobook By William Faulkner cover art

Light in August

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Light in August

By: William Faulkner
Narrated by: Will Patton
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Earphones Award Winner (AudioFile Magazine)

Audible is pleased to present Light in August, by Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner.

An Oprah's Book Club Selection regarded as one of Faulkner's greatest and most accessible novels, Light in August is a timeless and riveting story of determination, tragedy, and hope. In Faulkner's iconic Yoknapatawpha County, race, sex, and religion collide around three memorable characters searching desperately for human connection and their own identities.

Audie Award-winning narrator Will Patton lends his voice to Light in August. Patton has narrated works by Ernest Hemingway, Don DeLillo, Pat Conroy, Denis Johson, Larry McMurtry, and James Lee Burke, and brings to this performance a keen understanding of Faulkner, an authentic feel for the South, and a virtuoso narrator's touch.

As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of William Faulkner's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews James Lee Burke about the life and work of William Faulkner – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.

Be sure to check out Faulkner's The Wild Palms as well.

This production is part of our Audible Modern Vanguard line, a collection of important works from groundbreaking authors.

©1954, 1976 William Faulkner (P)2010 Audible, Inc. Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Sagas

Editorial reviews

Having grown up in the South, the daughter of someone who wrote her masters thesis on Southern fiction, the idea of writing even a 300 word review of William Faulkner’s classic Light in August is intimidating, to say the least. In the South, Faulkner is a rite of passage, someone we all read in high school or college but certainly not since, preferring to celebrate our literary legacy through more contemporary “Southern fiction light”. Faulkner is just tough — it’s dense and wrought with meaning — classic literature at its finest, but not what you would call a beach read (unless you’re my mom).

And then I listened to Will Patton perform Faulkner’s Light in August.

Faulkner’s stories are written out of chronological order, in layers, in such a way that you might come to know a story over time from hearing it told by many different people in a place. Those who have studied Faulkner say when you get really caught up in one of the author’s page-long sentences, the best thing to do is read it out loud.

It’s even better to listen. With intonation, and the honey smooth cadence of Patton’s voice, the story is suddenly clearer.

Patton introduces us to Lena Grove as she begins her journey to find the father of her unborn child, Lucas Burch. Instead she finds Byron Bunch, who feels a strong pull to take care of her, though it puts him in an awkward social position. For guidance, Byron visits the Rev. Gail Hightower, a man so haunted by not even his own past, but that of his grandfather, that he has trapped himself in his own home.

Even before we encounter Joe Christmas, the 33-year old drifter of ambiguous race, the allusions to the life and death of Jesus are thick. There is a fire and a murder, and it all unravels from there. Patton’s voice carries us through it all, enhancing the story with approachability and authenticity. The Charleston-born Patton’s southern accent is true and real—not a touch of the theatrical, overdone linguistics adopted by some other actors.

In Light in August, Faulkner addresses themes of morality and race, religion and redemption — all too deeply to address in these few words. But he does it without preaching or judgment, leaving the reader — and in this case the listener — to wonder about our own stories, and how they might be told. —Sarah Evans Hogeboom

Critic reviews

  • Audie Award Nominee - Best Classic Audiobook, 2011

"For all his concern with the South, Faulkner was actually seeking out the nature of man. Thus we must turn to him for that continuity of moral purpose which made for the greatness of our classics." (Ralph Ellison)
"It's impossible to overstate the difficulties facing Will Patton as he undertakes a reading of this Faulkner classic. It's not simply the matter of conveying early-twentieth-century Southern backwoods dialects. That, a skilled mimic with an exceptional ear like Patton masters easily. But this novel's demands are so much more arduous, requiring a narrator to plumb the depths of despair, hopelessness, faith, rage, and yearning that go on for page after page without letup." ( AudioFile)

Editor's Pick

True story about actor Will Patton
"Because Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner has the reputation (sometimes) of being hard to understand, Audible wanted to cast a narrator who is both a stellar performer *and* an accessible interpreter of stories dense with meaning. Enter Will Patton. I once asked Will Patton for the secret of engaging narration, and he said, ‘Easy. I don’t step up to the mic until I understand the value of every word.’ (Bonus audio track from James Lee Burke, too!)."
—Christina H., Audible Editor

All stars
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I have tried many times to make it through a Faulkner novel, only to become frustrated with my inablility to follow the complicated (albeit brilliant) style of his writing. He and Joyce are the two greats that I have not read to finality with any of their novels that I have attempted. Consequently, I was delighted to see that Audible was publishing this audio book with Will Patton as the narrator. Having listened to at least a dozen of his readings, light dawned instantly that this was the answer to my predicament. I was confident that, with his assistance, Faulker would no longer be a puzzle that I could not solve. He would provide the roadmap to get me through the Mississippi terrain.

I was not wrong in my expectations and I have not been disappointed in Mr. Patton or Mr. Faulkner. Each time I pull into my parking place at work, or into the driveway at night, I am disappointed that I must wait to continue with the story. But it is such a prize that I want to stetch out the experience for as long as possible.

While I was not alive during the era he writes of, I can remember my youth in the South twenty years later. The storyline and culture are eerily familiar. The strands of human nature still woven into today's headlines. Mr. Pattons's voice is a welcome friend and contains not a trace of falsity to the Southern tongue. The story line is relevent today both as history and commentary. It is all here......and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

Incredible narration to a spellbinding classic....

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It just doesn't get better than this. A masterpiece of Literature narrated with such depth of understanding and honesty that I think I'll go listen again right now. Will Patton brings it all out. And Faulkner is The Best of The Best. A very courageous writer.

Pure delight

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Faulkner is known for his lush descriptions and flowery prose. Light in August is filled with these staples, and it is a bit unfortunate, because there is a good story buried beneath these layers of fluff if you can only find it.

Also hindering the story is the plethora of chapter long soliloquies. Rambling and often incoherent, these passages read like fever dreams, and the reader is left without assistance to try to find some sense in them.

The story itself is filled with themes of racism, sexism, classism, authority, and religion. Two men named Joe, both from very different backgrounds, meet up while working at a mill. The elder Joe--quiet, mysterious, and dark, invites the younger Joe-- talkative, simple, and attention-seeking, to live with him in a cabin behind a rich woman's house so that they can sell bootleg whiskey.

One morning, the rich woman's kitchen catches fire and her body is found upstairs, leading the town to wonder if the men in the cabin had anything to do with her tragic demise.

A manhunt begins after one of the Joes claims the other killed the woman and demands the thousand dollar reward, and the other Joe disappears seemingly into thin air.

In the middle of the chaos, a young woman, heavily pregnant, shows up after walking to Mississippi on foot from Alabama in search of the baby's father. The town is scandalized by the unmarried woman with child, but a millworker falls in love with her and goes out of his way to help her with lodgings and food, all while trying to keep her from finding the father of the child.

The millworker takes daily council from a disgraced pastor who lives on the outskirts of town, and who tries to convince him to stay out of the woman's life completely, lest he fall into sin.

As the reader expects, the stories all intertwine eventually and the ensuing drama is satisfying and entertaining.

Four stars because of the need to sit through meaningless and unnecessary prose and confusing soliloquies to find the story. I'm not sure if I will read more by this author.

Will Patton does a great job with the southern accents, and makes the many characters distinguishable from one another. The narration is well-paced as well.

Good story buried beneath the flowery prose

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What did you like best about this story?

The charators and their stories are rich. The language gets a bit ponderous in multiple sections. It is easier to listen to when being active about listening rather then when attempting to multi-task.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

I was moved to tears, especially by the individual plights of the women at the end of the story.

beautifully written, while also a tad ponderous

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Where does Light in August rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Not very highly. If I were to rank it with the limited experience I have had with readers, I would rate it at a "3" for "mediocre."

What was most disappointing about William Faulkner’s story?

As I am already not a Faulkner fan, the grating overly intense reader, while he accurately portrayed the accents and vocals, made the story nearly unbearable at parts to listen to. Listening to his voice for 16 hours was very difficult on my ears, even to the point of soreness.

Not a fan

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This is a Masterpiece brought to life...perhaps the way it was in Faulkner's mind. Both knowing and unknowing, Patton's uncanny, yet genuine performance has brought Light in August to life in a way I had not previously experienced. Transfixing. Indomitable.

A masterpiece brought to life...

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This is just such an incredibly depressing piece of work. Light in August gives us characters woven into a tale set in the American South in the 1930s. Whether it is intense racism, religious fervor or just the general depression of the time, there's just about nothing uplifting about this story. Forget uplifting, there's nothing even hopeful. You'll end this book in the knowledge that William Faulkner was a first-rate writer, and you'll be thanking the stars for not having been alive then and there.

Illuminated writing, thoroughly depressing story

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A depressing story about characters that made wrong choices & kept making them. Or characters that were victims & remained victims by making wrong choices. Faulkner’s style of writing is like stream of consciousness & about half the words in the story could have been chopped.

A depressing story.

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It's hard to describe just what the structure of this book is. Characters we think are central disappear for long stretches. Characters we think are peripheral come to have major roles. The central plot line appears to lead nowhere. I am left with the sense that the real plot lies outside of what is reported in the book, and can only be inferred from the general shapes outlined therein. Faulkner is probably the most successful experimental writer of the 20th century. One of the few where we feel the experimental elements serve the function of the story instead of the other way around. In this book, it is the fragmented way of telling the story, and the sense of an overarching purpose that cannot be directly stated. Nowadays, the fragmented chronology has become so common that we may not appreciate how revolutionary Faulkner's work really was. One thing Faulkner is always good at is at expressing the ambiguity in a character's words or actions. Rather than simply say what a gesture means, he will leave you with a multitude of interpretations just as you are left in real life wondering what a gesture truly meant. Just as our own gestures mean more than can be neatly summed up in a tidy soundbite explanation.

It's not giving anything away to say that there are numerous allusions to the nativity story in this book, though it can be easy to forget as the story twists away in different directions. It's a very dark twisted version of the nativity story all the same. I think the underlying meaning of the book lies somewhere in the contemplation of its elements as they relate to that archetypal story.

Will Patton does a terrific job of keeping all the characters straight and of evoking the period and the people.

Sort of a dark nativity story twist

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What made the experience of listening to Light in August the most enjoyable?

I have never read this book and decided to try some real literature and see if I liked it. I love Faulkner's way with words and the narration by Will Patton was superb. When I finished it, I looked it up on Wikipedia and didn't realize alll the biblical connotations to this story. However, I liked the story by itself, I don't need all of the deep meanings to it. The story stands tall without it.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Byron Bunch. He was a lonely, disconnected man coasting thru life until he meets Lena. He learns to take a chance and stand up for what he believes in. Powerful stuff.

Have you listened to any of Will Patton’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

This is the first time, if he is the actor,(which I think he is) I enjoyed his performance in Armageddon but nothing compares with his brilliant reading of this book. He got all the nuances right and made all of the characters live and breathe for me.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Too long, so no. I enjoy taking my time and cherishing a book, getting the time to muse over each chapter and anticipate what is coming next. This is one of those books and I don't regret at all the week it took me to listen.

Any additional comments?

Absolutely loved this book. One of my favorites!

What a story! Beautiful!

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