Memphis in Requiem for a Nun (Location)

Founded in 1819 on the banks of the Mississippi River, Memphis, Tennessee, is the closest big city to Jefferson and it appears in almost half the 69 Yoknapatawpha fictions. In Requiem it is from "the Memphis airport" that Temple and her family fly to California (44). Much more importantly, the story that Temple is so reluctant to tell mostly takes place in seamier parts of Memphis, in the "Manuel Street sporting house" (i.e. house of prostitution, 111), "the back alleys of the redlight district" (113), and Popeye's "nightclub, joint, on the outskirts of town" (114). Later the novel links Memphis with New Orleans as places where people from Yoknapatawpha are likely to go to misbehave during "a few prolonged Saturday nights" (205).