Walker Percy: Biography Part II

L. Lamar Nisly, "Walker Percy: The Writer as Diagnostic Canary to Pilgrim Wayfarers" in Wingless Chickens, Bayou Catholics, and Pilgrim Wayfarers: Constructions of Audience and Tone in O'Connor, Gautreaux, and Percy. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 2011.

Nisley asserts, "Percy's conversion offered him a place of certainty, a stable world view" (145). Percy married Bunt Townsend. Soon after they received instruction from a priest to join the Catholic church. Percy and his wife decided to live in Covington, Louisiana. Nisly thinks this choice had an impact for Percy's life and writing. When they moved to Covington in 1948, it was a community of 6,000. This part of Louisiana was known as the Florida Parishes. This part of Louisiana had a independent streak. Percy would describe Covington as a "pleasant nonplace" (146). Covington, Louisiana is part of the deep south. Like O'Connor, Percy would be surrounded by Fundamentalist Protestants. He lived what was called the Bible belt.

Covington, Louisiana is about thirty minutes from New Orleans. Nisly states, "What made covington attractive for Percy was that it allowed him the anonymity while also providing him easy access to New Orleans, with its intense sense of place and history" (146). In addition, Percy thought he would get more writing done in Covington. He wanted a place where he was not know to the community. Covington was an excellent place "given Percy's own stance as a satiric writer" (147). Tolson believed that Percy chose "to write from within a community" (147). Although Percy did not want to be overwhelm by the deep south culture of New Orleans, he valued community and he and his family "forged significant relationships within the community and the local Catholic church. Many of the locals liked him, but he thought he was strange since he did not go off to work. The positive thing is that people did not bother him, and they accepted him even though he seemed strange.  Nisly asserts, "Percy was both engaged in and separate from his larger community; he was both an involved participant and an outside observer and critic" (147).

A major part of Percy's community came from his involvement in St. Peters Catholic church in Covington. Percy's daughters went to the Catholic school in Covington. Percy also became connected to ST. Joseph's abbey. He would go on regular religious retreats at the abbey. The president of the college at the abbey became his spiritual adviser. Percy also developed relationships with Catholic authors. Percy basically affirmed the Second Vatican Council, but he critiqued certain parts of it. He did have great admiration for Pope John Paul II. Like his situation in Covington, "Percy stakes out a position that allows him to be part of the Church, but also to have enough distance to be able to critique multiple positions in the Church" (153). Percy was a person who was on the margins of communities he participated in which allowed him to critique things that he thought were wrong in the community.