Just Finished Reading Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner

I just finished reading William Faulkner's 1948 novel Intruder in the Dust.  It's a small town in Mississippi around that same time.  An elderly black man, Lucas Beauchamp, has been arrested for the murder of a white man...Lucas was discovered holding a smoking gun at the site of the killing.  He is in jail and there are fears of a lynching.  A white boy, Chick, who remembers (with resentment) how Lucas had once saved him from drowning in a creek after he had broken through the ice, wants to finally settle the score by saving him from this murder rap.  An elaborate plot ensues with Chick's uncle Gavin being hired by Lucas to legally represent him...and then Lucas hints to Chick that his gun wasn't the murder weapon.  But they'd have to go out in the country several miles in the dead of night to dig up the victim's body...Chick, a black teenager, and an elderly white woman make up the unlikely team for this adventure.  How does it all end? Will our heroes succeed or be thwarted along the way?  Or will the angry racist mob first lynch proud Lucas?  And what about Uncle Gavin, who possesses a fatalism about the racist attitudes in 1948 of too many Mississippi whites with regard to the blacks living among them...will he step out boldly and do what is right and just for Lucas Beauchamp?

In spite of the underlying racism depicted in Intruder in the Dust, it is also a pretty darn good mystery story...as well as containing many funny sections.  The dialogue reflected that used by the people back then, and as such would not withstand the scrutiny of the political correctness police of today's world as they self-righteously try to retroactively rewrite history.  In spite of this, the novel sounded a theme of hope and progress for the South and that whites and blacks could be eventually reconciled...without having that reconciliation imposed on them from the North.  This last hope didn't exactly turn out the way Faulkner wanted as the ensuing decades would show...

My biggest problem with this book was how the author would suddenly descend into long sections of intricate analysis that, to me, went way over the heads of its characters.  It was if there was an extra character in the story: the collective subconscious that defined this society, and it was making its own case as much as any of the individual people were.  I'm not sure that any writer other than one with the stature of William Faulkner could have gotten away with this technique: I'm sure I would have been laughed straight out of the editor's office had I used it.  Nevertheless, Intruder in the Dust is a good book that mixes well its characters, setting, mystery, and social commentary.  And no doubt it's waiting for you at your local public library!