Walker Percy · 1961 · exile

Walker Percy's first novel, which took the National Book Award off Catch-22 and Franny and Zooey. Binx Bolling sells stocks in a New Orleans suburb, goes to the cinema, and is conducting what he calls the search - and the whole book happens in one Mardi Gras week, most of it within a few miles of his flat.

1. 1
   Gentilly

   A New Orleans suburb of bungalows and cinemas where Binx Bolling sells stocks, takes his secretaries out, and goes to the pictures - a man of twenty-nine conducting what he calls the search, which he cannot define.

2. 2
   New Orleans

   The Garden District and his aunt's house, and Mardi Gras week - and his cousin Kate, who is not well, and whose company is the only thing in the book that reads as real rather than observed.

3. 3
   Chicago

   He takes Kate north on the train on an impulse, which is a disaster - a man who cannot bear to be anywhere in particular discovering that the same is true five hundred miles away, and being telegraphed home by his aunt.

4. 4
   Gentilly

   Back to New Orleans and an ending that is quieter than the book has led you to expect - Binx marrying Kate and going to medical school, and Percy declining to say whether the search has ended or been abandoned.