36 Facts About Walker Percy

Walker Percy, OblSB was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics.

Walker Percy had a lifelong friendship with author and historian Shelby Foote and spent much of his life in Covington, Louisiana, where he died of prostate cancer in 1990.

Walker Percy was born on May 28,1916, in Birmingham, Alabama, the first of three boys to LeRoy Pratt Walker Percy and Martha Susan Phinizy.

In 1929, when Walker Percy was 13, his father died by suicide.

Walker Percy's mother took the family to live at her own mother's home in Athens, Georgia.

Two years later, Walker Percy's mother died in a suspected suicide when she drove a car off a country bridge and into Deer Creek near Leland, Mississippi, where they were visiting.

Walker Percy was raised as an agnostic, but he was nominally affiliated with a theologically liberal Presbyterian church.

Walker Percy attended Greenville High School and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he majored in chemistry and joined the Xi chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity.

Walker Percy wrote essays and book reviews for the school's Carolina Magazine.

However, when they arrived at his home, Walker Percy was so in awe of the literary giant that he could not bring himself to speak.

When Walker Percy graduated in 1937, Foote dropped out and returned to Greenville.

Walker Percy became an intern at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan in 1942 but contracted tuberculosis the same year while he was performing an autopsy at Bellevue.

Walker Percy spent several years recuperating at the Trudeau Sanitorium in Saranac Lake, in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York.

Walker Percy spent his time sleeping, reading, and listening to his radio to hear updates on World War II.

Walker Percy was envious of his brothers, who were both enlisted in the war and fighting overseas.

Walker Percy began to question the ability of science to explain the basic mysteries of human existence.

Walker Percy began to rise daily at dawn to attend Mass.

Walker Percy traveled to New York City to see Huger Jervey, dean of Columbia Law School and a friend of Percy.

Walker Percy then lived for two months in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with his brother Phin, who was on leave from the Navy.

Walker Percy consequently traveled to Wallingford, Connecticut, to stay at Gaylord Farm Sanatorium.

Walker Percy had begun in 1947 or 1948 to write a novel called The Charterhouse, which was not published and Walker Percy later destroyed.

Walker Percy worked on a second novel, The Gramercy Winner, which was never published.

Walker Percy told Percy the story of his life where he is burned out and does not know what to do next.

Walker Percy published a number of nonfiction works exploring his interests in semiotics and existentialism, his most popular work being Lost in the Cosmos.

In 1975, Walker Percy published a collection of essays, The Message in the Bottle: How Queer Man Is, How Queer Language Is, and What One Has to Do with the Other.

Walker Percy attempted to forge a connection between the idea of Judeo-Christian ethics and rationalized science and behavioralism.

Walker Percy married Mary Bernice Townsend, a medical technician, on November 7,1946.

Walker Percy underwent an operation for prostate cancer on March 10,1988, but it had already metastasized to surrounding tissue and lymph nodes.

Walker Percy enrolled in a pilot study to test the effects of the drugs interferon and fluorouracil in cancer patients.

Walker Percy died of prostate cancer at his home in Covington in 1990, eighteen days before his 74th birthday.

Walker Percy is buried on the grounds of St Joseph Benedictine Abbey, in St Benedict, Louisiana.

Walker Percy had become a secular oblate of the Abbey's monastic community, making his final oblation on February 16,1990, less than three months before his death.

Walker Percy's writing serves as an example for contemporary southern writers who attempt to combine elements of history, religion, science, and the modern world.

In 1962, Walker Percy was awarded the National Book Award for Fiction for his first novel, The Moviegoer.

In 1985, Walker Percy was awarded the St Louis Literary Award from the Saint Louis University Library Associates.

Walker Percy read his essay, "The Fateful Rift: The San Andreas Fault in the Modern Mind".