The Golden Book of
Yoknapatawpha County

Born Paris. Very short. Lived in Martinique for a while, from where he was coaxed by Thomas Sutpen to come with him to Yoknapatawpha County to construct his plantation house. They arrived on a Sunday in June of 1833. Spent the following two years in Sutpen’s captivity. Lived on venison cooked over a camp fire, in an unfloored tent made of the wagon hood, and said to initially have been kept at night in a kind of pit tied wrist to wrist with one of his captor’s Carib slaves. In the Summer of 1834, when they had finished all the brick and had the foundations laid and most of the big timbers cut and trimmed, made one unsuccessful attempt to escape into the river bottom, as one day he couldn’t stand it anymore or he was afraid he would starve or that the wild niggers (and maybe Colonel Sutpen too) would run out of grub and eat him or maybe he got homesick or maybe he just had to go. Maybe he had a girl or maybe he just wanted a girl. Disappeared in broad daylight in his embroidered vest and Fauntleroy tie and a hat like a Baptist congressman and probably carrying the hat in his hand. Spent fifty-odd hours of dark and swamp and sleeplessness and fatigue and no grub and nowhere to go and no hope of getting there: just a will to endure and a foreknowing of defeat but not beat yet by a damn sight. Pursued by a search party consisting of Sutpen, his slaves, dogs and a number of neighbours including Jason (II) Lycurgus Compson. Run down in the late afternoon of the third day, more than thirteen miles from the house, in a cave under the river bank, and then only because he had hurt his leg trying to architect himself across the river.

In revenge, designed Sutpen’s residence as something like a wing of Versailles glimpsed in a Lilliput’s gothic nightmare. Beginning in 1834, also oversaw the construction of Jefferson’s town square, new courthouse and refurbished jail. These were in the simplest Georgian colonial style, since, as he told them, the residents had no money to buy bad taste with nor even anything from which to copy what bad taste might still have been within their compass.

Returned to New Orleans in 1835, when Thomas Sutpen’s residence was completed save for the windowglass and the ironware which they could not make by hand, and he had received some compensation from Sutpen.

Owner of a fiery, wild stallion in 1919 that Bayard Sartoris (III) unsuccessfully tried to ride.

Lawyer in New Orleans. Enlisted by Eulalia Bon to administrate her fortunate and to act as a steward for Charles (I) Bon. Aware that Thomas Sutpen was his father, equivocated between disappearing with the money at once and using Charles to lay hands on Sutpen’s wealth at the cost of Charles’s ongoing expenditures. Sent Charles to the University of Mississippi at Oxford and an introduction letter for Charles to his half-brother Henry after learning that Henry had started there, in an attempt to engender an incestuous relationship between Charles and his half-sister Judith. In 1861, attacked by Charles after speaking dismissively about Judith. Then departed for Texas or Mexico or somewhere with the remaining funds, possibly after murdering Eulalia Sutpen.

Died 25 May 1929, Jefferson. Hanged for murder. In jail at the same time as Lee Goodwin. Claimed to be the best baritone singer in North Mississippi.

Marshal in Mottson in 1927.

Father of Myrtle? Refused to investigate in 1928 the theft by Quentin Compson (II) of Jason Compson (IV)’s savings, suspecting strongly that much of it actually belonged to her anyway.

Father of Myrtle? Refused to investigate in 1928 the theft by Quentin Compson (II) of Jason Compson (IV)’s savings, suspecting strongly that much of it actually belonged to her anyway.