Lisa C. Hickman is the author of William Faulkner and Joan Williams: The Romance of Two Writers; Stranger to the Truth, a narrative nonfiction work chronicling a high-profile Memphis matricide case; and editor of Remembering: Joan Williams’ Uncollected Pieces. She holds her PhD from the University of Mississippi and is currently at work on Between Grief and Nothing: Faulkner’s Later Years, from which this essay is excerpted.