Signposts in a Strange Land Essays

by Percy, Walker; Samway, Patrick

• ISBN13: 9780312254193
• ISBN10: 0312254199
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-04-01
• Publisher: Picador

Summary

At his death in 1990, Walker Percy left a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled inSignposts 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. Walker Percywrote many books, several of them bestsellers, and is considered one of the greatest American writers of modern times. His first novel,The Moviegoer, won the 1962 National Book Award. Upon his death in 1990, Walker Percy left behind a considerable legacy of uncollected nonfiction. Assembled inSignposts in a Strange Land, these essays concern language, literature, philosophy, religion, psychiatry, morality, and life and letters in the South. These pieces display the imaginative versatility of an author considered by many to be one the greatest modern American writers. "These moving pieces of nonfiction, some quite brief and terse, others more relaxed and spacious, offer 'signposts' that will help us understand not only the 'strange land' that is late-20th-century America, but the extraordinary mind of an especially alert and knowing observer."Robert Coles,Boston Sunday Globe "Tart, lively, and likeable. You come away admiring not only the writer's sense and sensibility, his sophistication and intelligence, but, more important, his wisdom and courage."George Core,The Washington Post Book World "Percy is always intelligent, always civilized, never blind to his opponents' point of view."Evelyn Toynton,The New York Times Book Review "Remarkably revealing . . .Signpostsshows Percy in all of his moral and intellectual grandeur . . . What shines through, however, is Percy's fundamental decency, his compassion for the human predicament, and his abundant love for humanity."Jonathan Kirsch,Los Angeles Times

Author Biography

Walker Percy wrotes several books, many of them bestsellers, and is considered one of the greatest American writers of our time.

Table of Contents

Introduction	ix
Life in The South
Why I Live Where I Live	3	(7)
New Orleans Mon Amour	10	(13)
The City of the Dead	23	(3)
Going Back to Georgia	26	(13)
Mississippi: The Fallen Paradise	39	(14)
Uncle Will	53	(10)
Uncle Will's House	63	(4)
A Better Louisiana	67	(4)
The American War	71	(6)
Red, White, and Blue-Gray	77	(6)
Stoicism in the South	83	(6)
A Southern View	89	(5)
The Southern Moderate	94	(8)
Bourbon	102	(9)
Science, Language, Literature
Is a Theory of Man Possible?	111	(19)
Naming and Being	130	(9)
The State of the Novel: Dying Art or New Science?	139	(14)
Novel-Writing in an Apocalyptic Time	153	(15)
How to Be an American Novelist in Spite of Being Southern and Catholic	168	(18)
From Facts to Fiction	186	(5)
Physician as Novelist	191	(6)
Herman Melville	197	(7)
Diagnosing the Modern Malaise	204	(18)
Eudora Welty in Jackson	222	(2)
Foreword to A Confederacy of Dunces	224	(3)
Rediscovering A Canticle for Leibowitz	227	(7)
The Movie Magazine: A Low ``Slick''	234	(11)
Accepting the National Book Award for The Moviegoer	245	(2)
Concerning Love in the Ruins	247	(4)
The Coming Crisis in Psychiatry	251	(12)
The Culture Critics	263	(8)
The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind	271	(24)
Morality and Religion
Culture, the Church, and Evangelization	295	(9)
Why Are You a Catholic?	304	(12)
A ``Cranky Novelist'' Reflects on the Church	316	(10)
The Failure and the Hope	326	(14)
A View of Abortion, with Something to Offend Everybody	340	(3)
Foreword to The New Catholics	343	(3)
If I Had Five Minutes with the Pope	346	(3)
An Unpublished Letter to the Times	349	(3)
Another Message in the Bottle	352	(16)
The Holiness of the Ordinary	368	(5)
Epilogue. An Interview and A Self-Interview
An Interview with Zoltan Abadi-Nagy	373	(24)
Questions They Never Asked Me	397	(28)
Bibliography and Notes	425