As punishment the protagonist is sent to live with the religious and abusive Simon McEachern, whom he later bludgeons to death with a chair.  
This novel coincidentally features a dietitian named Miss Atkins, who works at an orphanage and gets caught screwing a doctor by the protagonist, who, only a child then, is trying to eat some toothpaste.  As punishment the protagonist is sent to live with the religious and abusive Simon McEachern, whom he later bludgeons to death with a chair.  The protagonist then wanders around, struggling to find his racial identity, before arriving in Jefferson and having a love affair with the daughter of abolitionists, Joanna Burden, that ends with her murder.  FTP, name this William Faulkner novel about the exploits of Joe Christmas.
This novel coincidentally features a dietitian named Miss Atkins, who works at an orphanage and gets caught screwing a doctor by the protagonist, who, only a child then, is trying to eat some toothpaste.  
Light in August