Melville House Books

“A scathing parody that likens President Bush to the ‘idiot’ in William Faulkner‘s novel The Sound and the Fury has won this year’s Faulkner write-alike contest,” but Faulkner’s family is accusing the sponsor of the contest, Hemispheres, the in-flight magazine of United Airlines, with censorship for refusing to publish the piece in the magazine. According to an Associated Press wire story by Emily Wagster Pettus, Larry Wells, who organizes the Faux Faulkner awards with his wife, Faulkner’s niece Dean Faulkner Wells, says, “One of the things they asked was that we didn’t have profanity or any obvious sexual content. We watch for that. But anything else, like a political subject, was funny, it was parody. … We felt that that shouldn’t be censored.” The magazine, which denies the charges and says it has posted the story instead on its website, has also announced it will end its sponsorship of the annual awards. In the winning story, by Sam Apple, Bush is cast in the role of Benjy, “the mentally challenged son — or, as Faulkner himself said, the ‘idiot’,” in a scene where he is shown being prepped for a press conference: “‘Go and get him Saddam’s gun,’ Condi said. ‘You know how he likes to hold it.’ Dick went to my desk drawer and took out Saddam’s gun. He gave it to me, and it was hot in my hands. Rummy pulled the gun away. ‘Do you want him carrying a gun into the press conference?’ Rummy said. ‘Can’t you think any better than he can?’”

• MORE: Despite its refusal to publish it in its magazine, Hemispheres has made the entire story, “The Administration and the Fury,” available at its website.

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.