The situation of [Walker Percy's] The Second Coming is not new: the despair of an affluent, white, middle-aged man. But the novel's tone is beautiful in a way that little writing is now—sad and questioning, ironic, weary, and, finally, triumphant. Sadness and emptiness are difficult tones to achieve in fiction, and sometimes Percy bogs down in detail. But the reward of his effort (and the reader's, for it is a difficult book) is a genuine sweetness—mordant, touching, fragile, elusive. (p. 32)

It takes great courage to write a book like The Second Coming nowadays, when the novel of ideas is about as fashionable as cooking with animal fats. The novel's flaws are obvious: The pacing is uneven; it is often talky. And is it unfair to wish that Percy could present—just once—a woman who is not a mental case, a tease, or a religious plug-ugly...