A Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy [Hardcover]

Jay Tolson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1992

The first major biography of Walker Percy traces his literary career back to his childhood days spent carousing with Flannery O'Connor, William Faulkner, and Eudora Welty on his uncle's plantation. 17,500 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

This extremely well written biography offers many of the satisfactions of a good novel: strong themes, sensitive appreciation of character, and a compelling protagonist. The author of The Moviegoer and Lancelot, Walker Percy, seems always to have been a solitary wayfarer, despite an enduring marriage and close friendships, including a lifelong one with novelist and Civil War historian Shelby Foote. In Jay Tolson's assessment, the weight of his father's and grandfather's suicides bore heavily on Percy, whose desire to escape his deadly family legacy undoubtedly had a bearing on his choice of the Catholic faith at age 31. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This study of the life and work of Southern author Walker Percy (1916-1990), though competently written and researched, is flawed by Wilson's overt sympathy with Percy's philosophical outlook. The author was burdened by the angst of his father's and grandfather's suicides, and his essays--as well as his skilled and interesting novels, the National Book Award-winning The Moviegoer (1961), Love in the Ruins (1971) and The Thanatos Syndrome (1987)--reflect his quest for moral meaning in life, as Tolson shows. He found this in a conversion to Roman Catholicism, the ideas of the early existentialists and a rejection of modern secularism. Tolson is on firm ground when he details Percy's strong commitment to his wife and children, his friendship with writer Shelby Foote and his struggle to reach a moral position on civil rights, but his evaluation of Percy's work lacks critical distance. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 1ST edition (October 1, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671657070
• ISBN-13: 978-0671657079
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,687 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Biography Worthy of Its Subject, May 26, 1999

By 

[e-mail] (Washington DC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy (Chapel Hill Books) (Paperback)

This book is one of the finest I have ever read. I don't say that lightly; I have read my share of books and devoured anything written by or about Percy.

Tolson is worthy of the novelist whose life he portrays. He writes beautifully and takes the reader through the many periods of Percy's life. The biography is particulalry strong with the formative influences that shaped the novelist's life and world view-- the suicides, the depressions, both the "Old" and "New" South, his Uncle Will, Shelby Foote, modern America, religion, race, etc.

The book impacted me more than any other I have read, and I would not be the same person today without it. There can be no finer praise for a work; 5 stars seems so insufficient.

How fortunate we are Percy had Tolson as a biographer.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars On Target . . ., February 19, 2003

By 

Hunter Baker "Hunter Baker" (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy (Hardcover)

Percy was never terribly anxious to talk about himself, so it was a joy to read Tolson's well-researched account after devouring all of Percy's books. Where Percy has left only hints, Tolson delves more deeply to uncover Percy's troubled childhood which was redeemed in his teenage years by his Uncle Will, author of Lanterns on the Levee. If you read Walker Percy, you undoubtedly find you want to know more and more about the enigmatic genius. Tolson's biography of him fills in a lot of gaps.