Alcoholic Authors: William Faulkner
Infamous for his Alcoholism and Famous for his Writing.
Aug 13, 2008
William Faulkner never drank while he wrote but was an alcoholic throughout his life. His drinking experiences influenced his novels, poems, shortstories and screenwplays. He was one of the most important authors from the South, a winner of the 1949 Nobel Prize for Literature and is credited by some for the stream of consciousness technique used in fiction.
Early Life of William Faulkner
William Faulkner was born William Cuthbert Falkner on September 25, 1897 in New Albany, Mississippi. His family moved to Oxford when Faulkner was four years old where he lived off an on for the rest of his life. He was greatly influenced by his great-grandfather, William Clark Falkner who served as a colonel in the Confederate Army, founded a railroad and had the town of Falkner named after him. His grandfather also wrote several novels and other works which established the literary tradition in the family.
Faulkner was turned down by the United States Army during WWI because of his height then joined the Canadian and later the Royal Air Force but did not see any wartime action. It was during this time that a “u” was added to his name however the reason for this is unclear.
William Faulkner’s Marriage and Affair
William Faulkner and Estelle Oldham were married in June 1929. Their first daughter, Alabama died nine days after her birth. In 1930, he purchased the antebellum home Rowan Oak where he and his family lived until his daughter, Jill, sold the property to the University of Mississippi after her mother’s death in 1972.
From 1949 to 1953, Faulkner had an affair with Joan Williams, a young writer who considered him her mentor. The affair became the subject of her novel, The Wintering published in 1971.
Early Writing Career of William Faulkner
William Faulkner’s writing was influenced by living in Mississippi and is reflected in much of his work. His first novel, Soldier’s Pay, was published in 1925. This was followed by many celebrated works including The Sound and the Fury (1929), As I Lay Dying (1930), Light in August (1932), and The Unvanquished (1938.)
Faulkner’s first short story collection, These 13 (1932) includes many of his most acclaimed stories which were set in fictionalized Yoknapatawpha County and Lafayette County, Mississippi.
William Faulkner’s Awards for Literature
William Faulkner won for the Nobel Prize for “his powerful and artistically unique contribution to the modern American novel" and used part of the money to create a fund to support and encourage fiction writers. It later became known as the PEN/Faulkner Award. Another portion was donated to fund a higher education facility for African Americans.
Faulkner also won a Pulitzer Prize for the 1954 novel, A Fable, and also two National Book Awards for his first Collected Stories in 1951 and once again for A Fable.
William Faulkner and Alcoholism
William Faulkner had a serious drinking problem throughout his life although he never drank when writing as he did not believe that liquor helped to fuel the creative process. It is believed that he used alcohol as an “escape valve” from the day-to-day pressures of his regular life and his maddening financial problems.
Faulkner died in 1964 at age sixty-four leaving behind a legacy of unforgettable novels, poems, short stories and screen plays.
Bibliography:
Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography. New York, Random House, 1974. 2 vols.
Blotner, Joseph. Faulkner: A Biography, New York, Random House, 1984.
Sensibar, Judith L. The Origins of Faulkner’s Art, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1982.
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