In The Second Coming, as in many of his novels, Percy is more concerned with the attempts of two individuals to overcome their personal alienation from themselves, from others, and from God, than with their attempts to overcome their alienation from society. But these attempts are interrelated, and, in The Second Coming, Percy makes his clearest statement of the traditional belief that marriage is the basic social unit. At the end of the novel, Will and Allison have, to some extent, overcome their alienation, are preparing to marry, and, significantly, are planning to help others build a community.

The novel is also' a satiric attack on Christendom. Percy comments that his central character "lives in the most Christian nation in the world, in the most Christian part of that nation, the south, in the most Christian state in the south, North Carolina, in the most Christian...