A couple of thoughts, in case they matter at all. And I will surely understand if you folks decide they don't. 1) I didn't get around to reading LIGHT IN AUGUST until last summer, oddly enough. Certain ghosts from ABSALOM, ABSALOM! do haunt FINN, though. Along with bits of BENITO CERENO and BLOOD MERIDIAN and NOSTROMO and so on, and so on, and so on. 2) Ms. McCoy's reading of my work -- "If Huck is a mulatto, then he's passing whether he knows it or not. No wonder he thinks race is important. It's in his blood, right? 'Cause white folks don't ever need to think about race, right?" -- is so willfully at odds with the content of the novel and the widespread critical response to it (not to mention my own intent, which, as I noted, may or may not carry any weight), that it comes to me as a complete and utter astonishment. I'd apologize to mankind for facilitating such a statement, if I felt it derived from a credible reading. As for whether or not attitudes like Finn's were al all possible in the time period depicted, I will bow out of the discussion and leave it to others. Thanks, all. -- J