Light in August
Light in August,novel by William Faulkner, published in 1932.
Joe Christmas is the son of Milly Hines and a traveling circus man, who is murdered by Milly's father, Eupheus Hines, because Hines is fanatically convinced of the man's Negro blood. When Milly dies in childbirth, Hines leaves the infant on the steps of a white orphanage on Christmas night (the source of Joe's surname) and takes a job there to watch, with mingled hatred and religious fervor, the working out of God's will. When he is five, Joe innocently surprises Miss Atkins, the dietician, and an intern making love, and, convinced that Joe will tell on her, she informs the matron that he is a black. Accordingly he is sent away to be adopted by Simon McEachern, a puritanical farmer who believes only in hard work and austere religion. Stoically enduring McEachern's whippings, Joe does not rebel until he is 18 and has his first romantic experience, with a waitress, but when they are...
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