You know, Birmingham was a splitting-off place — the place the kept Walker from being “Old South.” He commented on the fact that at the end of Faulkner’s saga, the old family home was being town down to make way for a golf course. As bulldozers levelled new fairways, the “heirs” looked on (one of them a half-wit). By contrast, Walker said that he grew up in a B’hm house that was ON a fairway! No gnashing of teeth on Walker’s part, no longing for the “old order.” I saw Walker many times over the years. He was a cousin, but my best friend, Phinizy Spalding, was Walker’s first cousin. Phinizy, a University of Georgia historian (specializing in the colonial America era), and Walker were a lot alike in their very un-puffed-up gentlemanliness. Distinguished as the two men were, they could be plain as an old shoe in so many settings.

The fun thing about living in Birmingham is meeting older families who knew Percy’s. There’s a lawyer here who is actually named for him - the guy’s grandfather, I believe, was friends with Percy’s father.

Thank you for the link to the Percy/Springsteen article. Interesting…. Your mention of Flannery O’Connor reminds me of another very smart Baptist who writes about a Catholic writer: Ralph C. Wood at Baylor in Waco, Texas. (By the way, I don’t think O’Connor can rightly be called “Savannah’s” — a minor point.) What is it with these Baptists and their interest in Catholic literary types? Walker Percy was an Incredible Hulk fan only, I think, because — by his own statement — he would watch ANYthing on TV. No discretion at all… Did Welty really watch that show? Seems odd…. Percy’s writing to Springsteen, on the other hand, seems completely normal. But writing to celebrities is a risky deal. You never know if the celeb got the message. I wish Bruce Springsteen could have met his admirer Walker Percy.

Thanks for the link to that Percy/Springsteen exchange. That’s the trouble about writing to celebrities: you never know when of if they’ll get the message. Your mention of Flannery O’Connor reminds me about Ralph C. Wood (another very smart Baptist — from Waco, Texas — who knows a lot about a southern, Catholic writer). What is it with these Baptists and their Catholic subjects? By the way, I don’t think O’Connor should rightly be called “Savannah’s” — a minor point. Did Eudora Welty really watch “The Incredible Hulk,” as Walker did? Of course, Percy watched that because he said he would watch ANYthing. Did Welty do that, too? Seems odd for the lady….

Yes, Walker grew up at Independent Presbyterian Church in Birmingham. His mother’s people in Athens, Georgia, the Phinizys, had been Presbyterians for generations. Walker converted to Roman Catholicism in Sewanee, Tennessee — in the same place where his “Uncle” William Alexander Percy had converted much earlier from Catholicism to agnosticism.

There was a time when many people were outraged at the use of surgical anesthesia as an illicit escape from the human condition.

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2009/02/super_bowl_spri.php

In it, Walker references his friend, Savannah’s beloved Flannery O’Conner & Springsteen mentions your fiction pick, “The Moviegoer.”