On a sultry summer night in 1915, Jay Follet leaves his house in Knoxville, Tennessee, to tend to his father, whom he believes is dying. The summons turns out to be a false alarm, but on his way back to his family, Jay has a car accident and is killed instantly, leaving his wife, brother, and young son to deal with his sudden death.

From one of the most important American novelists of the twentieth century—a novel of sexual, racial, political, artistic passions, set in Greenwich Village, Harlem, and France.
“Brilliant and fiercely told.”—The New York Times

One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Stunning for its emotional intensity and haunting sensuality, this book depicts men and...

In these four plays, Jean-Paul Sartre, the great existentialist novelist and philosopher, displays his mastery of drama. No Exit is an unforgettable portrayal of hell. The Flies is a modern reworking of the Electra-Orestes story. Dirty Hands is about a young intellectual torn between theory and praxis. The Respectful Prostitute is a scathing attack on American racism.

At the heart of this 1930 novel is the Bundren family's bizarre journey to Jefferson to bury Addie, their wife and mother.

Laurel Hand, long absent from the South, comes from Chicago to New Orleans, where her father dies after surgery. With Fay, the stupid new young wife of her father, Laurel returns to her former Mississippi home and stays a few days after the funeral for reunions with old friends. In a night alone in the house she grew up in, she confronts elements of the past and comes to a better understanding of it and of herself and her parents.

One of the most influential works of this century, this is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide: the question of living or not living in an absurd universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Camus posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of life lived with dignity...