- Percy, Walker
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born May 28, 1916, Birmingham, Ala., U.S.died May 10, 1990, Covington, La.U.S. novelist.He was orphaned in late childhood and was raised by a cousin in Mississippi. While working as a pathologist he contracted tuberculosis; during his recuperation he decided on a writing career and converted to Roman Catholicism. His first and best-known novel, The Moviegoer (1961), introduced his concept of malaise, a sense of spiritual emptiness characteristic of the rootless modern world. His other works, often about the search for faith and love in a New South transformed by industry and technology, include Love in the Ruins (1971), The Second Coming (1980), and The Thanatos Syndrome (1987).
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▪ American novelistborn May 28, 1916, Birmingham, Ala., U.S.died May 10, 1990, Covington, La.American novelist who wrote of the New South transformed by industry and technology.Orphaned in late childhood after his father, a lawyer, committed suicide and his mother died in an automobile accident, Percy went with his brothers to live with their father's cousin, a bachelor and lawyer, in Greenville, Miss. Percy studied at the University of North Carolina (B.A., 1937) and Columbia University (M.D., 1941) and, while working as a pathologist at Bellevue Hospital, New York City, contracted tuberculosis, compelling him to rest at an upstate New York sanatorium. While recovering, he read widely, was attracted to the works of European existentialists, and decided on a career in writing. He also converted to Roman Catholicism.During the 1950s, Percy wrote articles for philosophical, literary, and psychiatric journals, and not until 1961 was his first novel published, The Moviegoer, which won a National Book Award and which introduced Percy's concept of “Malaise,” a disease of despair born of the rootless modern world. Other fiction included The Last Gentleman (1966), Love in the Ruins: The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time near the End of the World (1971), Lancelot (1977), The Second Coming (1980), and The Thanatos Syndrome (1987). He also wrote such nonfiction as The Message in the Bottle (1975), a sophisticated philosophical treatment of semantics.Additional ReadingTwo biographies of Walker Percy are Jay Tolson, Pilgrim in the Ruins (1992); and Patrick H. Samway, Walker Percy (1997). Critical interpretations include Gary M. Ciuba, Walker Percy: Books of Revelations (1991); Edward J. Dupuy, Autobiography in Walker Percy: Repetition, Recovery, and Redemption (1996); Kieran Quinlan, Walker Percy: The Last Catholic Novelist (1996); and Carl Elliott and John Lantos (eds.), The Last Physician: Walker Percy and the Moral Life of Medicine (1999).* * *
Universalium. 2010.
