5 Books Similar to As I Lay Dying

Preface: The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people. And as the intense desires, fears and rivalries of the family are revealed in the vernacular of the Deep South,

Preface: In a small town in rural Georgia, two babies are born - one light skinned and one dark. Their mother, Elma Jessop is a white sharecroppers daughter and the birth of her children causes a scandal in the town because her father, Juke, claims Elma was raped. This claim leads to the lynching of a field hand by the name of Genus Jackson and the unravelling of a whole load of secrets in the house in which the babies were born.

Preface: It is 2074 and a second American Civil War has broken out between the Northern and Southern states of America, the (Blues) and the (Reds.)

Sarat Chestnut is six and lives with her family in a corrugated container in St James, Louisiana. She spends her days playing in the river and on it’s muddy banks with her twin sister Dana and her brother Simon. This is the last time she will remember being happy.

American War is a story told by Sarat’s nephew and outlines how a young girl was turned by circumstance into a deadly weapon.

Preface: Depicting the gradual disintegration of the Compson family through four fractured narratives, The Sound and the Fury explores intense, passionate family relationships where there is no love, only self-centredness. At its heart this is a novel about lovelessness - 'only an idiot has no grief; only a fool would forget it. What else is there in this world sharp enough to stick to your guts?'

Preface: The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter is about a mute man named John Singer. Singer lives in a small town in a Southern state in America. Singer is an incredibly lonely man but there is something about him that draws people to confide in him.

These people include a young girl named Mick who is anxious to grow up, a frustrated black doctor, an angry drunk and the owner of the local café.

Preface: Sal Paradise, young and innocent, joins the slightly crazed Dean Moriarty on a breathless, exuberant ride back and forth across the United States. Their hedonistic search for release or fulfilment through drink, sex, drugs and jazz becomes an exploration of personal freedom, a test of the limits of the American Dream.