Walker Percy Libri

The correspondence between Walker Percy and Shelby Foote offers a unique glimpse into the lives of two literary figures from the late 1940s until 1990. Their letters reveal a blend of deep personal struggles, including illness and loss, alongside playful banter and humor. As they navigate their careers—Percy with his novels and philosophical works, and Foote with his acclaimed Civil War history—Tolson's edited collection illuminates their friendship and shared artistic journey. An eight-page photo insert enhances the narrative of their enduring bond.

At his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled in Signposts in a Strange Land, these essays on language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers.

In "Message in the Bottle," Walker Percy explores interconnected themes like symbolic reasoning, humanity's origins, and the Delta Factor. With a novelist's perspective, he tackles profound philosophical questions, revealing how language shapes our existence through his insightful observations.

Lancelot Lamar is a disenchanted lawyer who finds himself confined in a mental asylum with memories that don't seem worth remembering. It all began the day he accidentally discovered he was not the father of his youngest daughter, a discovery which sent Lancelot on modern quest to reverse the degeneration of America. Percy's novel reveals a shining knight for the modern age--a knight not of romance, but of revenge.

Explores human nature and presents insights on the self and its fears, sexuality, boredom, depression, and other aspects.

Kate's desperate struggles to maintain her sanity force Binx to relinquish his dreamworld.

When Dr. Tom More is released on parole from state prison, he returns to Feliciana, Louisiana, the parish where he was born and bred, where he practiced psychiatry before his arrest. He immediately notices something strange in almost everyone around him: unusual sexual behavior in women patients, a bizarre loss of inhibition, his own wife's extraordinary success as bridge tournaments, during which her mind seems to function like a computer. With the help of his attractive cousin, Dr. Lucy Lipscomb, Dr. More begins to uncover a criminal experimentto "improve" people's behavior by drugging the local water supply. But beyond this scheme are activities so sinister that Dr. More can only wonder if the whole world has gone crazy -- or he has . . .

Exploring themes of spiritual searching and modern angst, this volume compiles three influential works by a Southern physician-turned-novelist. The Moviegoer follows Binx Bolling, a New Orleans stockbroker seeking meaning through cinema. The Last Gentleman features a southerner in New York grappling with amnesia and existential dread. Love in the Ruins presents Dr. Thomas More, a psychiatrist confronting a fractured America. Additionally, the collection includes three insightful nonfiction pieces by the author, enhancing the understanding of his literary contributions.