One Matchless Time: A Life of William Faulkner

“Nothing less than spellbinding . . . It’s an eye-opener. Anecdotal without being tawdry, analytical without being academic, it captures the essence of Faulkner’s life with the narrative drive of a novel.” — Houston Chronicle

“A splendid life of William Faulkner . . . Not only readable but downright enthralling.” — Seattle Times

William Faulkner was a literary genius, and one of America's most important and influential writers. Drawing on previously unavailable sources--including letters, memoirs, and interviews with Faulkner's daughter and lovers--Jay Parini has crafted a biography that delves into the mystery of this gifted and troubled writer. His Faulkner is an extremely talented, obsessive artist plagued by alcoholism and a bad marriage who somehow transcends his limitations. Parini weaves the tragedies and triumphs of Faulkner's life in with his novels, serving up a biography that's as engaging as it is insightful.

Jay Parini, the author of highly praised biographies of Robert Frost and John Steinbeck, has now written an engaging biography of one of the most significant American writers of the twentieth century.

One Matchless Time is a sympathetic, sweeping evocation of William Faulkner's life and work. From his birth in 1897 in Mississippi to his death sixty-five years later, Faulkner spent almost his entire life on this one small patch of land, the "significant soil" from which all his fiction grew. Jay Parini paints an intimate picture of Faulkner's Mississippi world and shows how the artist transformed this raw material into Yoknapatawpha County, a place of pure imagination.

Between 1928 and 1942, during what Faulkner called his "one matchless time," a period of wild inspiration when characters and stories came to him mysteriously and in abundance, he published more than half a dozen masterpieces, including the novels The Sound and the Fury; As I Lay Dying; Sanctuary; Light in August; Absalom, Absalom!; The Wild Palms; Go Down, Moses; and The Hamlet. This is an astonishing achievement without equal in American literature.

Parini, who has taught Faulkner's work to students for nearly thirty years, vividly brings to life this writer's complex fictional world in the context of his life, using the one to illuminate the other. He uses letters and memoirs unavailable to earlier biographers as well as interviews he had with Faulkner's daughter and several of his lovers. His William Faulkner is an immensely gifted, obsessive artist plagued by alcoholism and a bad marriage, but someone who rose above his limitations to become a figure of major importance on the stage of world literature. One Matchless Time is a magnificent biography, profound, thought-provoking, meticulously researched, elegantly composed, and a tribute to the genius of its subject.

“Nothing less than spellbinding . . . It’s an eye-opener. Anecdotal without being tawdry, analytical without being academic, it captures the essence of Faulkner’s life with the narrative drive of a novel.” - Houston Chronicle

“Does everything a good literary biography should do…ONE MATCHLESS TIME is…a Faulkner biography for our time.” - Joseph Blotner, Sewanee Review

“[Parini] has a fellow writer’s appreciation for Faulkner’s language, and expresses that appreciation vividly...His book pays eloquent tribute.” - J. M. Coetzee, New York Review of Books

“A matchless look at the writer... With his characteristic elegance, Parini captures splendidly Faulkner’s... inestimable literary achievement.” - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Parini’s candid, personal, and extremely readable book is the place to send readers looking for an overview of an extraordinary sixty-four-year literary career.” - William H. Pritchard, Commonweal

“Parini’s candid, personal, and extremely readable book is the place to send readers looking for an overview of [Faulkner’s] career.” - William H. Pritchard, Commonweal

“Irresistible…Parini adds to our knowledge of Faulkner…a new understanding of how the novelist connected his violent, inchoate past with literature’s perdurable future, how he turned the savagery of his own blood into the permanence of art…. This biography reads like a novel.” - Christian Science Monitor

“Irresistible...A new understanding of how [Faulkner] connected his violent, inchoate past with literature’s perdurable future...Reads like a novel.” - Christian Science Monitor

“Told with literary grace, pacing, and narrative drive... Jay Parini’s biography of William Faulkner easily tops all others.” - Frank Lentricchia, Duke University

“No living literary biographer, and few dead ones, surpass Jay Parini’s skill...[He] renders a formidable giant of letters accessible. - Ron Powers, Pulitzer Prize-winning critic and biographer of Mark Twain

Parini––his prose crystalline, his interpretation proficient––brilliantly illuminates Faulkner’s complex psyche... Engrossing and revelatory, this is a landmark biography. - Booklist (starred review)

“The time is right for a biography like Jay Parini’s ONE MATCHLESS TIME.” - Wall Street Journal

“A splendid life of William Faulkner . . . Not only readable but downright enthralling.” - Seattle Times

“Nothing less than spellbinding . . . It’s an eye-opener. Anecdotal without being tawdry, analytical without being academic, it captures the essence of Faulkner’s life with the narrative drive of a novel . . . A haunting vision of the life and art of our great Southern novelist . . . Parini does an outstanding job of detailing how the fallen South provided [Faulkner with] a rich landscape.” - Houston Chronicle

“A worthy contribution to Faulkner scholarship . . . [Parini’s] deft handling of biographical fact forms a riveting narrative.” - Victor Strandberg, Chicago Tribune

“The heroic Parini hurries us directly back to THE SOUND AND THE FURY, LIGHT IN AUGUST, and ABSALOM, ABSALOM!” - John Leonard, Harper's Magazine

“An accomplished novelist and biographer, Parini . . . provides a brisk, engrossing account of Faulkner’s life.” - Oregonian

“Fine biography... Parini maintains a good balance of the man and his art. [His] analyses ring true.” - Tennessean