Sanctuary
~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp ~

William Faulkner (1897-1962) was the supreme American literary stylist of the twentieth century. Some of his books are notoriously difficult to read. His 1930 novel, Sanctuary, is one of his more accessible books, but still not always easy to read.

Temple Drake is an affluent college girl around 1929. She loves to remind people that her father is a powerful judge. She has a date with Gowan Stevens to go to a dance. Gowan is a high-powered lush. When he stops off with Temple to buy some bootleg hooch, that’s when Temple’s problems begin.

Gowan’s bootlegger operates out of the shattered remnants of a Civil War-era mansion.  (Southern Gothic to the hilt.) Inside the bootlegging operation are several unsavory characters that Temple would have been better off not to meet. Chief among them is Popeye, one of Faulkner’s most memorable villains. Popeye is malformed (his mother had syphilis before he was born) and he’s impotent (can’t perform sexually). While Temple’s escort, Gowan Stevens, lies in a drunken stupor, Popeye overpowers Temple Drake and rapes her with a corncob.

A kind black man named Tommy (said to be a halfwit) tries to protect Temple from Popeye. Popeye kills Tommy and blames it on the bootlegger, Lee Goodwin. Lee Goodwin’s long-suffering common-law wife, Ruby Lamar, is also in residence in the broken-down mansion. She apparently loves Lee Goodwin and will stand by him in the face of a false murder accusation. She has an ailing baby, who doesn’t seem long for this world.

Popeye takes innocent, young Temple Drake to Memphis, and sets her up in a whore house, run by a fat whoremeister known as Miss Reba. Miss Reba provides lots of comic relief at this point in the dark story. She loves her beer and her two yapping little dogs.

Since Popeye is unable to perform sexually, he brings in a “stud,” a man of his acquaintance named Red. He forces Temple to have sex with Red while he watches. Finally he becomes jealous of Red and murders him.

In the meantime, Lee Goodwin has been put in jail for the murder of Tommy the halfwit (which he didn’t do). Horace Benbow has been hired as Lee Goodwin’s lawyer. Lawyer Benbow has problems of his own including an unhappy marriage. He knows that Lee Goodwin won’t be able to pay him, but he takes the case anyway. He and Ruby Lamar discuss the possibility that she will pay him by having sex with him.

Lee Goodwin is tried for the murder of Tommy the halfwit. Public sentiment in the town is decidedly against him when people learn that he raped Temple Drake with a corncob. (He didn’t do it, of course; Popeye did it.) Lee Goodwin refuses to defend himself. This is not going to end well for him.

This is a dark story with dark elements: rape, abduction, prostitution, plenty of sex, a sensational murder trial. Only the brilliant Southern writer William Faulkner could have written such a story in 193o and make it artful instead of tawdry.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp