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The Thanatos Syndrome
''The Thanatos Syndrome'' (1987) was Walker Percy's last novel. It is a sequel to '' Love in the Ruins''. Set in the near future in Feliciana, it tells the story of an imprisoned psychiatrist who is freed and returns to his town with the active members demonstrating new mysterious behaviors. He suspects that something or someone is making everyone in his town crazy and reversing them to be like primitive apes. Plot After two years in prison for selling prescription drugs, Tom More, a Louisiana psychiatrist and lapsed Catholic, comes home to his virtually defunct practice and marriage. He notices that people in his town are different, many of his patients have a strange speech to them. Many faculties are dulled but some are enhanced, particularly memory and sexual appetite. Teaming up with his cousin Lucy, an epidemiologist who also has an independent mind, they discover that the authorities, a consortium of scientists, have been running secret trials on the population of the town ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walker Percy
Walker Percy, OSB (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American writer whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is noted for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans; his first, ''The Moviegoer'', won the National Book Award for Fiction. Trained as a physician at Columbia University, Percy decided to become a writer after a bout of tuberculosis. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of "the dislocation of man in the modern age."Kimball, RogerExistentialism, Semiotics and Iced Tea, Review of Conversations with Walker PercyNew York Times, August 4, 1985. Retrieved 2010-06-12. His work displays a combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith. He had a lifelong friendship with author and historian Shelby Foote and spent much of his life in Covington, Louisiana, where he died of prostate cancer in 1990. Early life and education Percy was born on May 28, 1916, in Birmingham, Alabama, the first of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
