Eileen Saint Lauren is a native Mississippian who identifies so closely with William Faulkner that she is willing to break the laws of the probable to include Faulkner as a character in her Southern Gothic Literary Fiction novel, Southern Light, Oxford, Mississippi.
Southern Light, Oxford, Mississippi is a story of the blended real and the fantastic set in the town of Oxford, Mississippi, near Faulkner's long-time home of Rowan Oak, now located on the property of the University of Mississippi. It spans from the American Civil War 1861 to Christmas Eve 1960. The tightness of the setting and the façade of small-town peacefulness deny the tormented souls who live within the houses and in the revered moss-hung environment where everyone—knowingly and unknowingly—is intimated by the recurrent appearance of the Southern light.
In addition to William Faulkner himself being caught up in the plot of tortured people, there are many other troubled individuals—a historic Confederate American Civil War ghost, an imprisoned man-child, an eccentric German caretaker who is a Holocaust survivor, and a tormented old woman—but only one is privy to a twenty-five year old secret. A secret born of rage and silent suffering.
Together, the haunted characters and plot seal the message of this timeless novel: "Truth can stand alone in any light but more so amid the Southern light."
