About Walker Percy
Biographic Information
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1916 Walker Percy born in Birmingham, Alabama, May 28
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1927 Suicide of father
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1931 Death of his mother, leads to adoption by “Uncle Will”
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1934 Enters the University of North Carolina as a chemistry student
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1937 Graduates North Carolina and goes to medical school at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons
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1941 Receives his medical degree in the year World War II begins
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1942 Death of “Uncle Will” Walker; is infected with tuberculosis.
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1944 Begins to teach pathology at Columbia but has a relapse
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1946 Marries Mary Bernice Townsend and moves to Sewanee, Tennessee
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1947 Converted to Roman Catholicism six months later and moves to New Orleans
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1961 The Moviegoer
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1962 Receives National Book Award
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1966 The Last Gentleman, runner up for the National Book Award
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1971 Love in the Ruins
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1975 The Message in the Bottle
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1977 Lancelot
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1980 The Second Coming
Walker Percy (1916-1990) won the National Book Award for fiction in 1961 for his first published novel, The Moviegoer. In five subsequent novels and numerous essays, he explored his chosen theme of "the dislocation of man in the modern age." His work combined a distinctly southern sensibility with existential philosophy and a deeply-felt Catholicism.
"Walker Percy." Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2004. Encyclopedia.com. 21 Nov. 2015
Born: Birmingham, Alabama, May 28, 1916.
Died: Covington, Louisiana, May 10, 1990.
Principal Works
NOVELS: The Moviegoer, 1961; The Last Gentleman, 1966; Love in the Ruins, 1971; Lancelot, 1977; The Second Coming, 1980; The Thanatos Syndrome, 1987.
ESSAYS: The Message in the Bottle, 1975; Lost in the Cosmos, 1983; Signposts in a Strange Land, 1991.
“You have got hold of the wrong absolutes and infinities. God as absolute? God as infinity? I don’t even understand the words”
(128-129).