If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem

Wild Palms starts in New Orleans in 1937 with Harry, an impoverished and virginal intern finishing his training in a hospital.

He tells himself, “Between grief and nothing I will take grief.” Old Man starts on a prison farm in Mississippi in 1927, where a convict has served time since his early teens.

[1] Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges translated the complete novel into Spanish as Las palmeras salvajes (1940).

The Wild Palms is quoted in Jean-Luc Godard's 1959 film, Breathless ("À bout de souffle"), when Patricia claims to prefer to take "grief rather than nothing"; the same quote is cited in the 1986 John Hughes comedy Ferris Bueller's Day Off, when Principal Rooney "consoles" Sloan while waiting in front of the school.

[citation needed] A copy of "The Wild Palms" appears on a bookshelf belonging to the protagonist in the 1999 movie "Ghost Dog."