That Faulkner was a "liar" not just in his writing but also in his life has troubled many critics. With psychopathological imposture-theories they have explained his numerous "false stories," particularly those about military honors he actually never earned and war wounds he never sustained. The drawback of this critical approach is that it reduces and oversimplifies the complex psychological and aesthetic phenomenon of Faulkner's role-playing.

Instead, this study by one of the most acclaimed international Faulkner scholars takes its cue from Nietzsche's concept of "truth as a mobile army of metaphors" and from Ricoeur's dynamic view of metaphor and treats the wearing of masks not as an ontological issue but as a matter of discourse.

Honnighausen examines Faulkner's interviews and photographs for the fictions they perpetuate. Such Faulknerian role-playing he interprets as "a mode of organizing experience" and relates it to the crafting of the artist's various personae in his works. His conclusion, a comparative view of cultural nationalism and international regionalism in the Thirties, will lead readers to a new understanding of The Hamlet and of Faulkner's self-portrait of the artist as a Mississippi farmer.