The Reivers

To reveal too much of the plot would be a discourtesy to the reader, for this is a book which moves on the wheels of breathless suspense. It may be said, however, that one day in 1905 eleven-year-old Lucius Priest — certain to become one of the most cherished striplings in literature — "borrowed" his grandfather's automobile, with the tacit connivance of two older friends: the part-Indian Boon Hogganbeck and Ned William McCaslin, a Negro. In that nostalgic day, their ensuing expedition in the car from Jefferson, Mississippi, to Memphis called for the fearless hardihood of pioneers. The account of the heroic trio's journey is as exciting as it is hilarious — but it is just a pale prelude to the aventures that await them in Memphis. These begin when Ned — a long-shot gambler and manipulator of Hoemric stature — trades Grandfather's car for a dubious race horse. How the three reivers grapple with the ensuing crisis is the mainstpring of the story. Beginning with a night of whispered conspiracy in Miss Reba's brother (made famous by the author's Sanctuary), it ends only after a conflict with the law, and some of the most hair-raising and bizarre horse racing in the history of fact or fiction.

The wild humor, the racy language, and the frenetic action will not, however, blind the perceptive reader to the fact that The Reivers, like all of William Faulkner's work, is also a book about moving and tender human relationships, with profounf moral insights into human conduct.