William Faulkner and Alcohol

Joseph Blotner points out in his references that anyone--or many people--who came of age in the 1920's and during Prohibition Drank Heavily! People guzzled whenever they had the chance; made poisonous concoctions at home--not just wine and beer, but moonshine liquor and others. American women drank more alcohol in company with men than before.

So it wasn't just William Faulkner.

His family had a history of the men drinking too much. As a toddler and small child, he was given the last sips of the father or grandfather's sweet toddy drinks; he learned young.  His father occasionally had to be hospitalized to recover from a drinking binge.

And it was the same with William Faulkner. The pressures of life, an unsteady marriage, depression, loneliness or just plain boredom could send him into a tailspin (to use an aviation reference).  Perhaps a few times a year these binges would occur; a couple of times (so far as I am in the book), he would have drunk himself to death if not found in time.

His wife, Estelle, also tried to escape her demons by drinking. The story of that marriage is a completely different blog post. But with both parents' alcoholic problems, their daughter and Estelle's children by her first marriage had to deal with many an unpleasant scene.

Again: Sad even after all these decades. If a person is subject to depression, alcohol is not the remedy.

The problem affected his earning power during the many years he worked in Hollywood as a script writer for the studios; his ability to work was not reliable. But he worked on several famous Howard Hawks films, among many others.

He knew, worked with, drank with many of the most legendary figures of the publishing business in NY and the film production business in Hollywood from about 1933 until his death in 1962.

Would it have made a difference in his work if he'd had more control? We can never know.

William Faulkner loved Aviation and Flying

I'm reading this long, detailed biography of William Faulkner (by Joseph Blotner); I seem to be discussing it bit-by-bit instead of at the conclusion.

So, it's the early 1930's, Faulkner finally sells enough books and stories to afford (barely) a hobby. Obsessed by flying (as many were and still are)

he took lessons and then purchased a used plane. Other members of his family (his brothers) also became pilots. They were better at it than he was:

becoming involved in the early businesses in aviation.  And shows, barnstorming, etc.  Flying influenced much of Faulkner's early writing.

This is sad, heart breaking after 85 years: his youngest brother, the baby of the family of 4 sons, everybody's favorite family member, met a horrific

end.   After a long day of aerial exhibitions, he took some local farm kids (teenage) up to show them their farms from the air. 

What went wrong will never be known; but the plane and the people inside ended up in a grisly, smashed wreck, half buried in a farmer's field near Pontotoc, MS.

Faulkner spent a horrifying night in a bathroom: the undertaker, a bottle of whiskey, the broken body of his beloved younger brother in the bathtub, 

as they tried to make him presentable for his wife and mother to view his remains.   The effort was not successful.  The emotional PTSD: unspeakable.

Faulkner was devastated. Blamed himself. But here's the thing about his talents as a writer: Faulkner would have been capable of retelling that entire horrible episode, including the mortuary/bath tube scene, using his vernacular, oblique poetic prose; the result would likely horrify, grieve and stun the reader---and somehow be rolling in the aisle with laughter.   (Such as in the story about Mules in the Yard).  I don't know if he ever incorporated the incident into any of his fiction: probably not; the grief was real and life changing.

Probably spiraled into a bout of self destructive binge drinking?  I don't know yet.  I will read on.

Yes, Mother: We Miss and Remember You Each Day..

Photo of the original snap shot of my Mother. By the line of her dress, the time is "after the War started" when hems were shorter to conserve fabric.  The more I study the photo and the dress, my guess is that she made it; did a good job of it too.  Probably a dress she could wear to work at Kroger's food labs in Cincinnati?   Before she joined the Army.   So maybe 1942?