Faulkner's first novel is a humane, searching and powerful exploration of war and mortality A group of soldiers travel by train across the United States in the aftermath of the First World War. One of them is horribly scarred, blind and almost entirely mute. Moved by his condition, a few civilian fellow travellers decided to see him home to Georgia, to a family who believed him dead, and a fiancee who grew tired of waiting. Faulkner's first novel deals powerfully with lives blighted by war.