Lanterns on the Levee by William Alexander Percy

“Wise’s biography the first full-length treatment of Percy to foreground his homosexuality from start to finish. “Wise’s crisp and clear articulation of Percy’s views of love and sexuality will attract the attention of scholars and general readers far beyond the field of southern studies.”- Southern Spaces “An excellent biography.”- Memphis Magazine “ highlights Percy’s dedication to his adopted family and intellectual pursuits, rendering his subject a compellingly complex character.”- Publishers Weekly 'This beautifully written biography will appeal to general readers as well as scholars of gay history and the South.'- Library Journal Published in association with the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill About the In Wise's hands, these seemingly disparate worlds become one. This biography sets Percy's life and search for meaning in the context of his history in the Deep South and his experiences in the gay male world of the early twentieth century. Wise's exploration brings depth and new meaning to Percy's already compelling life story-his prominent family's troubled history, his elite education and subsequent soldiering in World War I, his civic leadership during the Mississippi River flood of 1927, his mentoring of writers Walker Percy and Shelby Foote, and the writing and publication of his classic autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee. We follow Percy as he travels from Mississippi around the globe and, always, back again to the Delta.

Though Percy is best known as a conservative apologist of the southern racial order, in this telling Wise creates a complex and surprising portrait of a cultural relativist, sexual liberationist, and white supremacist. Wise presents the singular life of William Alexander Percy (1885-1942), a queer plantation owner, poet, and memoirist from Mississippi.

Lanterns on the Levee by William Alexander Percy