This sequel to Faulkner’s most sensational,
Sanctuary
, was written twenty years later but takes up the story of Temple Drake eight years after the events related in
. Temple is now married to Gowan Stevens. The book begins when the death sentence is pronounced on the nurse Nancy for the murder of Temple and Gowan’s child. Told partly in prose, partly in play form,
Requiem for a Nun
is a haunting exploration of the impact of the past on the present.