Intruder in the Dust

Intruder in the Dust by William Faulkner         Audio Book:  8 hrs.  11mins         Paperback Book:  256 pages        

This was a well-written tale of a black man being subjected to Southern justice in a backwater town.   The black man is accussed of killing a white member of the most influential family in the county.     The evidence was circumstantial and the black man knowing he was being railroaded hires a (family-tied) lawyer.     Everyone in town including the lawyer assumes the man is guilty and the defendant does not spell out the facts he knows just tells the lawyer to check the bullet hole(s).    By this time the murdered man is already buried so there is a whole big hurrah getting to the details on this case which I will let the reader find out for themselves.   I will say this about the writer,  William Faulkner is a good writer who can describe a thing to a t so that there is no mistaking his intention, however, having said that, I have to also mention that Mr. Faulkner must be paid by the word because he will take 4 pages to say what he could have said in a paragraph.   I found it annoying having to wade through all the flowery prose and his going 40 miles around a topic just to come back to it and draw a simple conclusion.    This happens so many times throughout the story that I often forgot what his original point was by the time he concluded his philabustering.   But the story was a good one if you trim the fat of his oratories and get to the meat of his intended tale.    I liked the story itself but found his wool gathering to be way too much.   For that reason I hesitate to offer my recommendation for this book.    A good story that is WAAAY overtold.    I don't plan on reading any more of Mr. Faulkner's works any time soon as the frustration of his over wordy soliloquies are frustrating to the story he means to tell.

- Shirley J