Walker Percy, 1916-1990
CHILDHOOD
1916--May 28, birth in Birmingham, AL
1929--July 9, father's suicide (age 13)
1930--residence with mother's family in Athens, GA
1931--residence with father's first cousin, William Alexander Percy, Greenville, MS
1932--April 2, death of mother in an automobile accident (15)
TRAINING, RECOVERY, AND DISCOVERY
1937--graduation from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a major in Chemistry; beginning of three years of psychoanalysis
1941--graduation from Columbia University, M.D. (25)
1942--January 21, death of William Alexander Percy from stroke;
Percy's onset of three-year bout with tuberculosis
1945--residence in New Mexico with Shelby Foote, high school companion
1946--November 7, marriage to Mary Bernice Townsend (30)
1947--conversion to Catholicism; residence in New Orleans, LA
1950--beginning of residence in Covington, LA
WRITER: PHILOSOPHER AND NOVELIST
1954--publication of first journal essay (38)
1961--publication of first novel, The Moviegoer
1962--awarded the National Book Award for The Moviegoer
1966--The Last Gentleman
1971--Love in the Ruins
1975--The Message in the Bottle (essay collection)
1977--Lancelot
1980--The Second Coming
1983--Lost in the Cosmos (non-fiction)
1987--The Thanatos Syndrome
1989--Delivery of the 18th Annual Jefferson Lecture, National Endowment for the Humanities, Washington, DC
1990--May 10, death, from cancer, Covington, LA
1991--Signposts in a Strange Land (essay collection)
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Photograph of The Kumquat, Covington, La. by Gene Beyt (1995)