A convolutedly hopeless family hauls its dead matriarch to burial, beset by misfortune largely of their own devising. The veiled drama of the story is often the stuff of southern gothic pulp, and the characters may flutter dangerously close to archetype, but the magic is in the telling. Faulker slips gracefully between distinct and memorable voices, and the story comes together in vague references and incomplete reveals like a tragic mystery. And as one of the pioneers of stream-of-consciousness techniques, Faulkner allows his narrators to give their accounts through particularly strange and memorable viewpoints.