One of Faulkner s comic masterpieces The Reivers is a picaresque that tells of three unlikely car thieves from rural Mississippi. Eleven-year-old Lucius Priest is persuaded by Boon Hogganbeck one of his family s retainers to steal his grandfather s car and make a trip to Memphis. The Priests black coachman Ned McCaslin stows away and the three of them are off on a heroic odyssey for which they are all ill-equipped that ends at Miss Reba s bordello in Memphis. From there a series of wild misadventures ensues--involving horse smuggling trainmen sheriffs deputies and jail.