The town

Small town families of the South become well developed casts in these character-oriented, relaxed paced series that trace generations. While both are engagingly descriptive, Faulkner is more moody, even sobering, while Harrington can put a humorous tone into serious events. -- Matthew Ransom

The Martin Scarsden novels are heirs to the territory pioneered by Faulkner's Snopes Family series, in that both are bleak yet lyrical rural noir explorations of the hidden violence and depravity of small town life. -- Michael Jenkins

These classic family sagas follow the French Rougon-Macquart families and the Mississippi Snopes family through decades of personal and financial ups and downs. Though character-driven and realistic overall, each series features some melodramatic subplots involving obsession, revenge, and hereditary dysfunction. -- Michael Shumate

Few fictional series capture American small town life as well as these character-driven works. With lyrical and descriptive language, both authors create engagingly thorough portrayals of many cultural facets and societal structures. Faulkner develops an especially broad family tree. -- Matthew Ransom

With a relaxed pace and character-driven storylines, these series bring small town America to life. A more humorous sense of cynicism touches McMurtry's Texas while Faulkner's Mississippi has a more moody tone, yet both are engagingly descriptive, even lyrical. -- Matthew Ransom

These series have the appeal factors lyrical, stylistically complex, and intricately plotted, and they have the genre "literary fiction"; and characters that are "flawed characters," "complex characters," and "authentic characters."

These series have the appeal factors lyrical, stylistically complex, and intricately plotted, and they have the genres "literary fiction" and "family sagas"; the subject "families"; and characters that are "flawed characters," "complex characters," and "authentic characters."

These series have the appeal factors reflective and lyrical, and they have the genre "literary fiction"; and characters that are "complex characters" and "authentic characters."

These series have the appeal factors lyrical, stylistically complex, and first person narratives, and they have the genres "literary fiction" and "southern fiction"; the subjects "family relationships" and "race relations"; and characters that are "flawed characters," "complex characters," and "authentic characters."

Both William Faulkner and Cormac McCarthy use dense, lush prose and elliptical storytelling in their literary fiction. Both write about deep issues of humanity and morality, usually with a dark tone, and devote great care to developing their settings; fans of Faulkner's fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi will appreciate McCarthy's novels set in the South. -- Victoria Fredrick

Both William Faulkner and Antonio Lobo Antunes write leisurely paced, complex, and character-driven stories marked by psychological depth, vivid and atmospheric descriptions, and keenly perceptive, frequently cynical commentaries on oppressive societies. Faulkner's prose is difficult and elegant while Antunes' is lyrical and dense, but both use experimental styles. -- Derek Keyser

Both Louise Erdrich and William Faulkner combine a supple, poetic writing style with vividly realized settings and unforgettable characters -- and both are known for creating fully realized communities. Both also frequently set up complex, interlocking narratives. -- Shauna Griffin

These authors create stylistically complex, leisurely paced, and intricately plotted novels, often with a moody or bleak tone and a lyrical style. The psychological aspects of social pressures are common themes in their American, usually 20th century, settings. William Faulkner is more descriptive and Ralph Ellison more dialogue-rich, but both leave haunting impressions. -- Matthew Ransom

William Faulkner's readers will find many similarities in Toni Morrison. Morrison blends harsh realism and mysticism into her multi-layered, challenging stories, exploring race and life across centuries in rich, lyrical, dense, and even experimental prose. -- Krista Biggs

Though Jennifer Makumbi is a 21st-century Ugandan author and William Faulkner is a 20th-century American, both employ complex writing styles, sweeping storylines, multiple perspectives, the power of family myths and traditions, and the effects of past tragedies to relate affecting tales about people beset by circumstances beyond their control. -- Katherine Johnson

Paul Harding illuminates haunting, atmospheric, rural New England characters and settings like William Faulkner's rural Southern ones. Both are concerned with generations of their fictional families who struggle to find meaning in life and reason in death. Their leisurely paced narratives are descriptive, stylistically complex, and can be lyrical. -- Matthew Ransom

Both Jesmyn Ward and William Faulkner write of human drama in a first-person style through characters that, though uneducated, have rich, complex inner lives and speak with erudition and lyricism. Both authors have set multiple novels in richly detailed locations of the American South that are entirely of their own creation. -- Shauna Griffin

These authors' works have the appeal factors haunting and first person narratives, and they have the genres "southern fiction" and "classics"; the subjects "dysfunctional families," "race relations," and "racism"; and characters that are "flawed characters" and "complex characters."

These authors' works have the appeal factors bleak and stream of consciousness, and they have the genres "southern fiction" and "southern gothic"; and the subjects "farm life" and "rural life."

These authors' works have the appeal factors unconventional, and they have the genres "southern fiction" and "southern gothic"; and the subject "sharecroppers."

These authors' works have the genres "southern fiction" and "classics"; and the subjects "farm life," "racism," and "rural families."