An authorized biography of the distinguished American author traces the complex events of his life, from his childhood and education to his marriage, conversion to Catholicism, and medical and literary career.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
The author is particularly well qualified to evaluate novelist Walker Percy's philosophical interests and 1947 conversion to Catholicism: Patrick Samway, a Jesuit priest, edited a volume of Percy's uncollected essays and another of his correspondence on the subject of American semiotician Charles Sanders Pierce. Although he knew Percy (1916-90) personally in his final years, Samway maintains a scholarly distance in this meticulously researched biography. It does not supplant Jay Tolson's more passionate 1992 assessment, but offers a valuable additional perspective.
From Library Journal
Eudora Welty said at the memorial service for Percy (1916-90) that "the physician's ear and the writer's ear are pressed alike to the human chest." What Percy heard there often caused despair, which in turn influenced his writing. Trained as a doctor, Percy never practiced medicine. Recuperating from tuberculosis, he began to think about writing professionally, which resulted in five novels, three books of nonfiction, and many essays. In this excellent biography, Samway, the editor of Percy's uncollected essays (Signposts in a Strange Land, LJ 7/91), reveals Percy to be a writer of great passion and intellect. Through a writing program, Samway got to know Percy just before his death and was apparently granted full cooperation by him and his family and friends. He traces through Percy's writing the currents of Kierkegaard, regionalism, medicine, Catholicism, and the irrational nature of human happiness. A fascinating study; for all literature collections.?Robert Kelly, Fort Wayne Community Schs., Ind.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs):
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thanatos syndrome, chest service, paperback rights, unpublished interview Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New Orleans, The Moviegoer, Walker Percy, Uncle Will, Mattie Sue, The Last Gentleman, Mary Pratt, Chapel Hill, Bob Giroux, United States, Miss Otis, Caroline Gordon, Flannery O'Connor, The Second Coming, Will Percy, Allen Tate, Roger Straus, Civil War, The Charterhouse, The Pica, Henry Robbins, Eudora Welty, Trail Lake, Grandmother Phinizy New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
thanatos syndrome, chest service, paperback rights, unpublished interview Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, New Orleans, The Moviegoer, Walker Percy, Uncle Will, Mattie Sue, The Last Gentleman, Mary Pratt, Chapel Hill, Bob Giroux, United States, Miss Otis, Caroline Gordon, Flannery O'Connor, The Second Coming, Will Percy, Allen Tate, Roger Straus, Civil War, The Charterhouse, The Pica, Henry Robbins, Eudora Welty, Trail Lake, Grandmother Phinizy New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
10
books
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- Benedict in the World: Portraits of Monastic Oblates by Linda Kulzer on page 156, page 157, and page 159
- Lean Down Your Ear upon the Earth, and Listen: Thomas Wolfe's Greener Modernism by Robert Taylor Ensign in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Sustaining New Orleans: Literature, Local Memory, and the Fate of a City by Barbara Eckstein in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- A Century of Catholic Converts by Lorene Hanley Duquin on page 153
- Shelby Foote: A Writer's Life by C. Stuart Chapman in Back Matter
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