Customer Reviews

Pilgrim in the Ruins: A Life of Walker Percy (Chapel Hill Books)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.