San Francisco Public Library

Walker Percy, a life, Patrick H. Samway

eng

Includes bibliographical references (p. [487]-489) and index

individual biography

platesillustrations

index present

non fiction

Walker Percy

bibliography

36843448

Patrick H. Samway

a life

When he won the National Book Award in 1962 for his first novel, The Moviegoer, Walker Percy quickly established a wide and devoted following. Trained as a physician (who never practiced medicine after suffering from tuberculosis in the 1940s), Dr. Percy became a careful diagnostician of modern society in five subsequent novels and three non-fiction books. This biography, written with Percy's approval and assistance, allows his life to unfold as he lived it, with its unexpected twists and complexities. The tragic deaths of his father and mother, different in manner but close in time, were traumatic events for their teenage son. His subsequent adoption by "Uncle Will - William Alexander Percy, the noted writer and patrician - extended his cultural horizons. After his studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at Columbia University's School of Medicine, he married Mary Bernice Townsend. Patrick Samway's meticulous biography tracks their conversion to Roman Catholicism and Percy's dogged determination to continue his career as a novelist and semiotician in Covington, Louisiana

The Birmingham years 1916-29 -- Athens and Greenville 1929-33 -- The college years 1933-37 -- The medical school years 1937-41 -- Illness, recuperation, and decision 1942-46 -- The apprenticeship years: writing The charterhouse 1947-53 -- From The gramercy winner to Confessions of a movie-goer 1954-58 -- A carer launched: The moviegoer 1959-61 -- Working on The last gentleman 1962-65 -- Working on Love in the ruins 1966-70 -- Writing and teaching 1971-74 -- The message in the bottle, Lancelot and The second coming 1975-80 -- Before and after Lost in the cosmos 1981-85 -- The Thanatos syndrome and the final illness 1986-90