Pilgrim in the Ruins

When Walker Percy died in 1990, little was known about this intensely private man whose five novels and countless essays had earned him the reputation as one of America's greatest writers. Based on extensive interviews and written with access to Percy's letters and manuscripts, Pilgrim in the Ruins is the first major biography of the writer, an authoritative portrait that brings Percy alive even as it illuminates his distinguished body of work, from The Moviegoer through The Thanatos Syndrome. First published in hardcover in 1992, Jay Tolson's masterful biography is available now for the first time in paperback. With a novelist's eye for character and the judgment of an informed critic, Tolson captures the lifelong drama of genius, always attentive to its artistic, psychological, and spiritual dimensions.