Faulkner's Oxford: Recollections and Reflections

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Like the Faulkner family, the Taylors have shared in the history of Mississippi for seven generations. Growing up in Oxford, the author encountered ``Mr. Billy'' from time to time; he was attracted to Cho-Cho, Faulkner's stepdaughter. He recalls children's parties, cigarettes snitched from the novelist's study, an attempt to poach a squirrel on the Faulkner property. But these gossamer-thin reflections are fillers for Taylor's main objective: identifying the landmarks in Yoknapatawpha County and Jefferson (Lafayette County and Oxford) in remarkable detail--roads, buildings, towns. Hardly a stone is left unturned in this vivid depiction of Oxford and its countryside in the '20s and '30s. Of immense local interest, the book will also be welcomed by Faulkner scholars. Photos. (Dec.)

Library Journal

Presumably of interest to some lifelong Oxonians, Taylor's first book will furnish nothing to anyone interested in Faulkner. Considerably younger than the Nobel Prize winner, Taylor had only a nodding acquaintance with him and only a rudimentary understanding of his fiction. A rambling, self-indulgent, loosely written personal account of some of the changes he has seen in Oxford, Mississippi in the past 70 years, Taylor's superficial book does nothing but extend and further burden the already heavy shelf of Faulkner iana.-- Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, Mo.