Moviegoer

Moviegoer

by Percy Walker (Author)

Synopsis

Winner of the 1961 National Book Award 'The Moviegoer' is the dazzling novel that established Walker Percy as one of the major voices in Southern literature. 'The Moviegoer' is Binx Bolling, a young New Orleans stockbroker who surveys the world with the detached gaze of a Bourbon Street dandy even as he yearns for a spiritual redemption he cannot bring himself to believe in. On the eve of his thirtieth birthday, Binx Bolling is adrift in New Orleans. He occupies himself with dallying with his secretaries and going to movies, which provide him with the 'treasurable moments' lacking in his real life. But one fateful Mardi Gras, Binx embarks on a hare-brained search for authenticity that outrages his family, endangers his fragile cousin, Kate, and sends him reeling through the chaos of the French Quarter. Wry and wrenching, rich in irony and romance, 'The Moviegoer' combines Bourbon Street elegance with the spiritual urgency of a Russian novel in a genuine American classic.

$13.36

Save:$0.20 (1%)

Quantity

17 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 256
Edition: New edition
Publisher: Methuen Publishing Ltd
Published: 27 Feb 2004

ISBN 10: 0413773272
ISBN 13: 9780413773272

Media Reviews
'So sharp, witty and profound ... Percy should have an acknowledged place between John Updike and Richard Ford as a great chronicler of twentieth century small town American malaise.' The Guardian * 'Some novels simply do not go away. They lodge in your consciousness, expanding rather than disappearing after the last page is turned ... Their mysteries deepen with each reading. Your curiosity about them is never quenched. 'The Moviegoer' has proved to be just such a book for me, as it has for countless others.' New Statesman * 'A modern classic ... Wry and lyrical, it will be a discovery for those who have not yet read it and a double pleasure for those who will read it again.' The Times * 'Funny and sad ... a gifted Southern master with a flair bordering on genius.' Irish Times * 'His story is often so shrewdly witty, even outright funny, that one forgets it is a novel about despair.' New York Herald Tribune
Author Bio
Walker Percy was born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1916, graduated from the University of North Carolina in 1937 and became Doctor of Medicine at Columbia University in 1941. 'The Moviegoer', his first novel, was awarded the 1962 National Book Award for Fiction. Mr Percy's other novels include 'The Last Gentleman', 'Love in the Ruins', 'Lancelot', 'The Second Coming' and 'The Thanatos Syndrome'. Walker Percy died in 1990.