Though unable to meet Faulkner through Will Percy, Foote would nevertheless become enamored with his work. When on a road trip with Walker in 1938, Foote drove the pair to Rowan Oak, Faulkner’s home in Oxford, Mississippi, despite the protests of his friend. Foote and Faulkner would end up speaking for hours on literature and writing. For Foote, the visit marked a pivotal moment in his writing career. Not only did the meeting energize Foote to begin writing his first novel, Tournament, but it also marked the first of many visits between the two. Another such meeting was another road trip, this one to Shiloh in celebration of the publication of Foote’s novel about the battle, which Faulkner praised as “the damndest book I have ever read and one of the best.”[2] Along the way, the pair scoured a dry county together in search of whiskey, which, not surprisingly, they eventually found.[3]

Faulkner’s style was a huge influence on Foote when he was writing his first works of fiction. In fact, one of the biggest criticisms of Foote was that he sounded too much like Faulkner in his early novels.[4] Not only was Foote influenced by Faulkner’s techniques in writing, but also by his views on the South. Like Faulkner, Foote came to view “slavery as America’s… original sin,” as well as seeing flaws in the regions treatment of blacks.[5] Yet Faulkner, like Foote, could never come to grips with just how prevalent prejudice was throughout the South and even in their own works. Though progressive by the standards of the day, neither of them would truly be able to condemn the actions of what both men loved most – the South.