Sanctuary

Sanctuary, novel by Faulkner, published in 1931. The original text, in which Horace Benbow is the central character, was published in 1981. Requiem for a Nun (1951) is a sequel.

Temple Drake, an 18‐year‐old Mississippi college girl, goes to a petting party with a drunken escort, Gowan Stevens (see Gavin Stevens), who wrecks his car on a lonely road. They walk to a nearby house, which is a bootleggers' hideout, inhabited by a number of vicious criminals of whom the chief is the killer Popeye, emasculated and of subnormal intellect as the result of a childhood accident. Temple's cowardly escort escapes after a severe beating, but the girl, whose virginity makes her the object of several attacks, is finally raped by Popeye, who incidentally murders one of his men. He then places her in the Memphis brothel of Miss Reba, who is at first pleased to have the custom of this influential man, then horrified by his degenerate conduct. Goodwin, one of the bootleggers, is arrested for the murder that Popeye committed and is defended by a member of the distinguished Benbow family of Jefferson, Horace Benbow, a lawyer who wishes to redeem his conventional career by serving justice in this unpopular case. He learns of Popeye's guilt and of the plight of Temple, whom he persuades to testify. The girl's mind is already unbalanced, and her testimony only increases the unreasoning vindictiveness of the jurors, who convict Goodwin. The latter is brutally lynched; Benbow manages to escape with his life; Temple is taken by her broken father to live in Paris; and Popeye, who has escaped to Alabama, is apprehended and hanged for another murder, which he did not commit.