Walker Percy Check Collection

Walker Percy was born on May 28, 1916 in Birmingham, Alabama. After his father’s death in 1929, Walker’s family relocated to Athens, Georgia. Percy’s mother died in an automobile accident a couple of years later, and Percy and his brothers relocated to Greenville, Mississippi to live with their father’s cousin, William Alexander Percy. Walker Percy attended the University of North Carolina where he received a B.A. in Chemistry in 1937. He later attended the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University from where he graduated in 1941. In 1944, after battling and recovering from tuberculosis, Percy abandoned his medical career to purse a career in writing. Percy married Mary Bernice (“Bunt”) Townsend in 1946, and shortly thereafter the new couple relocated to Covington, Louisiana. They had two daughters. Around the time they moved to Louisiana both Percy and his wife joined the Roman Catholic Church. Percy published a number of essays in the 1950s. His first novel, The Moviegoer (1961), won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1962. Following the success of The Moviegoer, Percy published both fiction and nonfiction covering subjects such as philosophy, semiotics, religion, science, and life in the South. Percy died of cancer at his home in Covington, Louisiana in 1990.

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