Robert Dennis "Denny" Buchanan, 24, was born in Jackson, Mississippi, the youngest of Bill and Rhonda Buchanan's three sons.
Bill was a successful lawyer who chose to spend most of his time ensconced in his law office and was largely absent from family life. On the rare occasions he came home from the office, he usually steeled himself with a large glass of Scotch as soon as he walked in the door.
Rhonda focused on the family and "community activities," which consisted mainly of long liquid lunches and visits to the flower shop.
In kindergarten, Denny often hoarded the blocks or cried whenever he had to give up a toy. Later in life, Denny would joke that he was the only kid in Mississippi to get kicked out of four different kindergartens. Whenever he got into trouble, Rhonda would dock her big Mercedes in front of the school and march in to demand that the principal stop persecuting her son for other people's failures.
Predictably, as Denny progressed through school, teachers and classmates usually tolerated rather than appreciated him. He did just well enough to advance each year, although most teachers would have given him a social promotion anyway, just to avoid dealing with an irate Rhonda.
At Jackson Prep, a private school, Denny's natural talent for soccer overcame his basic laziness, and he was voted onto the all-city team. Coaches coddled him to avoid Rhonda's now-infamous ability to blame Denny's shortcomings on everyone around him. Once, she even wrote a letter to the governor, complaining that Denny failed his driving test because the administrator "didn't like him."
After high school, Denny attended the University of Mississippi. Rhonda thought the requirement that first-year Ole Miss students live in the dorms was terribly harsh treatment, so they filled out the paperwork and paid the fees for dorm living, and then promptly rented a house downtown for Denny.
Nominally, Denny was studying business at Ole Miss, but he spent most of his time partying with his fraternity and driving girls out to Sardis Lake in his convertible BMW. Denny's good looks, family money, and natural charm usually balanced out his less savory personality traits and made him quite popular.
Denny dated countless girls at Ole Miss, never getting serious with any one person until he met Barbara Dubois. He became infatuated with this woman, who wasn't impressed by his wealth or his family background. She enjoyed riding in his convertible but didn't seem dazzled by it.
And to top it off, she was gorgeous and was expected to easily win Miss Mississippi and go on to the Miss America pageant. Denny determined that she would be the perfect trophy wife to complement the house his parents would build him in Madison.
Two years ago, Denny asked Barbara to marry him, but she declined. He knew she had always been somewhat cool to him—she didn't fawn over him like the other girls, which was part of her allure—but he still believed she would accept his proposal. He was shocked and enraged and ran off to New Orleans for a long weekend of carousing with his fraternity brothers to get over being rebuffed.
After he graduated, Denny began working as a business manager for his father's law firm, although people often joked that he spent more time playing golf than working.
At the time of the Yoknapatawpha County Literature Festival Pageant, Denny was spotted back in Oxford, hanging out with old friends and visiting various bars on the Square.
