Absalom, Absalom!

Absalom, Absalom! is a Southern Gothic novel by the American author William Faulkner, first published in 1936. Taking place before, during, and after the American Civil War, it focuses on the rise and fall of Thomas Sutpen, a plantation owner in the American South, as told by several unreliable narrators many years later.
Absalom, Absalom!, along with The Sound and the Fury, helped Faulkner win the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 1949. In 2009, a panel of judges called Absalom, Absalom! the best Southern novel of all time.
Absalom, Absalom! is considered by many to be William Faulkner's masterpiece. Although the novel's complex and fragmented structure poses considerable difficulty to readers, the book's literary merits place it squarely in the ranks of America's finest novels. The story concerns Thomas Sutpen, a poor man who finds wealth and then marries into a respectable family. His ambition and extreme need for control bring about his ruin and the ruin of his family. Sutpen's story is told by several narrators, allowing the reader to observe variations in the saga as it is recounted by different speakers. This unusual technique spotlights one of the novel's central questions: To what extent can people know the truth about the past?