The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 13 July 2001
by Walker Percy
...and indeed, this book is an adventure. Percy published this book in 1971, and it takes place in the near future of that time frame (in other words, it would have happened by now). The story is steeped in the turbulent historical period of the few years before its publication. Down in the South, somewhere likely in Louisiana or Alabama, Dr. Tom More, descendent of the Utopian theorist, Sir Thomas More, is clutching a rifle, overlooking a decrepit Howard Johnson's roadside motel, anticipating the end of everything, and imagining the three women he will spend the dark future with. He has invented a machine that can gauge the workings of people's innermost psyche, but it has powerful side affects, and in the wrong hands can bring on catastrophe. That is apparently what is happening. More, though, has a history of his own mental problems, and we never know how much of the story is his hallucination. He lives in Paradise, a gated golf course community surrounded by bayou and populated by drug-addled drop-outs and violent black "Bantus". The world is upside down, the American Catholic religion has splintered, a catastrophe five years earlier has brought an end to the Auto Age, and the country has fallen into a bunker mentality. Or so Dr More thinks. There is hope, that if his lapsometer can be used wisely, that the world can retreat from the brink. But More is merely indulged by his fellow doctors. Nobody really wants any real change. More may end up only looking after his own safety. This is a turbulent, violent, and very witty novel. Percy extrapolates the violence of the 60s into a disturbed collapsing world. Much of what he writes is prescient. Much, though, has only faded away (but not gone away). There is a Southern point of view to the book, which makes it a little hard to decipher. Also, jarring epithets are in the mouths of even the most likable characters. This is where a healthy sense of context may be of help, otherwise, one may want to set aside all that Percy is trying to say here. Who knows, really, how much that is? In the end, it is an entertaining romp through a twisted little future.
Also by Percy: [The Last Gentleman]