At the Guardian, Emily Ruskovich, author of Idaho, tagged her ten favorite rural American novels, including:As I Lay Dying by William FaulknerRead about the other entries on the list.
Told in raw and perfect language, in 15 distinct and memorable voices, this is an honest, mystifying, painful story about a family’s promise to their dying mother that they would transport her body across the rivers and rough countryside of Mississippi to the place of her birth, to be buried. The characters who live are utterly alive, their motives complicated and often secret. Even their deceased mother, heavy in a casketthat her family nearly loses a few times on their difficult journey, is a living force to be reckoned with.
As I Lay Dying is on Jeff Somers's top five list of books written in very unlikely places, Shaun Byron Fitzpatrick's list of eight of the most badass ladies in all of banned literature, Nicole Hill's lists of nine of the biggest martyrs in fiction and five books that, like country and western songs, tell "stories of agony and ecstasy, soaring highs and mighty powerful lows, heartache and hard living," Laura Frost's list of the ten best modernist books (in English), Helen Humphreys's top ten list of books on grieving, John Mullan's list of ten of the best teeth in literature, Jon McGregor's list of the top ten dead bodies in literature, Roy Blount Jr.'s list of five favorite books of Southern humor, and James Franco's six best books list.
The “My mother is a fish.” chapter in As I Lay Dying is among the ten most notorious parts of famous books according to Gabe Habash.
--Marshal Zeringue
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