Begins as a young pregnant woman, Lena Grove, enters the town of Jefferson, to which she has traced her vanished lover, Lucas Burch. Her arrival coincides with an outburst of violent activity enveloping Jefferson: an old mansion burns down, and the woman inside is found murdered. The dead woman's lover, Joe Christmas, a black man passing for white, and a close associate of Lucas Burch, is held responsible. Faulkner recounts the tragic life of Joe Christmas, and the horrifying consequences of his escape from, and recapture by, the townspeople of Jefferson.

(Key Words: Fiction, Novels, William Faulkner, Mississippi, American South, Nobel Prize Winners).