The Reivers

The Reivers by William Faulkner, published in 1962, is a picaresque comic novel set in early 20th-century Mississippi. It follows 11-year-old narrator Lucius Priest, who joins his grandfather’s bumbling employee Boon Hogganbeck and family retainer Ned McCaslin on an impulsive borrowing of the grandfather’s new Winton Flyer automobile for a trip to the vice-filled city of Memphis. What begins as a lighthearted escapade spirals into a chaotic odyssey of horse-trading scams, brothel intrigues, rigged races, and moral reckonings, as the trio grapples with deception, racial tensions, and the loss of innocence amid the South’s shifting traditions. Through vivid storytelling and Faulkner’s signature stylistic flair, the tale celebrates human folly, forgiveness, and the bumpy transition from boyhood to adulthood.