| Walker Alexander Percy, a writer who was raised in Greenville, Mississippi, was born on May 28, 1916, in Birmingham, Alabama. At thirteen, his father, a lawyer in Birmingham, committed suicide by shooting himself in their home with a shotgun. Two years later, his mother drove her car off a country bridge. Percy always suspected that his mother had also taken her own life. He along with his two brothers moved in with their father's cousin, William Alexander Percy, a writer himself, in Greenville, Mississippi. This second cousin, who Percy would refer to as “Uncle Will” proved an encouraging and strong influence on Percy. Uncle Will may have been the best thing to happen in young Percy's life. Another influence was Shelby Foote, who also grew up in Greenville, Mississippi. The two developed a lifelong friendship and wrote regularly to each other. Their letters have been published recently in a book called Correspondence of Shelby Foote and Walker Percy. In a 1989 interview called More Conversations, Percy states: "I don’t like to be described as a Southern writer. The danger is, if you're described as a Southern writer, you might be thought of as someone who writes about a picturesque local scene like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Gone With the Wind, something like that." Walker Percy studied chemistry at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Upon graduation from college he decided to enter medical school. He was accepted to the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University's medical school. In 1941, Percy graduated and started an internship at Bellevue Hospital in New York. He had to quit his internship when he contracted tuberculosis. He later returned to Columbia to teach. Percy died from cancer on May 10, 1990 at seventy-four years of age. For more books by and about
Walker Percy
Click Here! | SLR Recommends ~ See our book review on
The Moviegoer. |
