Through a fictional community's response to those who defy its values, Light in August dissects Southern, and sometimes American, values regarding race, sexuality, regional origin, and religion, as the story moves from the turn of the century to the 1920s. In Joe Christmas the community of Jefferson, Mississippi, faces a man unsure of his racial origin, who rebels against any attempt to make him fully black or white. In Joanna Burden the community faces a woman whose family supported the abolitionist movement and continues to support Negro causes. In Gail Hightower the community faces a minister whose identity is trapped in a romantic Civil War fantasy which so overshadows the present that he fails to recognize the needs of his wife and his congregation. In Lena Grove the community faces an unwed pregnant woman supposedly pursuing the man who seduced and abandoned her.

For a community...