I got my money's worth of this American master

I have listened to maybe 10 of these three dozen or so short stories. I sampled the beginnings of each story (unless it was difficult to bear the narrator). If I liked the voice (several of my favourites herein) and could relate to the subject and character(s) I pressed on - so to speak.

Chapters 12 & 13: barber favours child of the small town and when she grows up, he marries her

Chap 30: Frustrated spinster enlists her boyfriend to murder her gramma

Chap 31-37: Freedom-loving heroin addict

Chap 38: Negotiating damages by trade

Chap 98-104: Old lady's life insurance for coffin (while she lives)

Chap 104: Wife of settled artist is annoyed by his hospitality to vagrant poets.

And a couple of others too. Now that I have skimmed I will go back and try a few more. Faulkner I was introduced to by satires by The Onion and John Malkovich in The Ogre ('96). He's right up there with Steinbeck and London. I am late in life discovering the greats of American literature. Price per judiciously placed word, this collection is a great deal! My only complaint is that unlike at least one of Steven Pinker's book the chapters are just numbers.

from Mistral (chapters 137-141)...

" And so he looked at her," Don whispered, "he had to sit across the table from her, say and watch her. Knowing she had no food of her own and that it was his food that was doing it. And not for him changing. Watching her eating the food that made her change from nothing and becoming everything. You know, girls, they are nothing, and then they are everything. You watch them become everything before your eyes. No, not eyes, it's the same in the dark. You know it before they do. It's not their becoming everything that you dread. It's their finding it out after you have long known it. You die too many times and that's not right, not fair. I hope I'll never have a daughter."
'That's incest,' I whispered.
"I never said it wasn't, I said it was like fire, like watching the fire lean up, in a way rushing."
'You must either watch a fire or burn up in it, or not be there at all. Which would you choose?'
"I don't know, if it was a girl, I'd rather burn up in it."

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