In the late 1940s, Walker Percy and Shelby Foote, friends since their teenage years in Greenville, Mississippi, began a correspondence that would last until Percy's death in 1990. Their letters provide a rich record of an enduring literary and personal friendship. Walker Percy, winner of the National Book Award, wrote six novels, two volumes of philosophical writings, and numerous essays on topics ranging from the aesthetics of bourbon drinking to race and integration in.

The South. Described variously as a Catholic novelist and philosophical writer, he was above all a gifted comic moralist, a writer of wit, and a keen observer of manners and mores. Shelby Foote began his career as a novelist, producing in short order five works of fiction that were greeted by favorable reviews and modest sales. Foote's reputation rests far less upon his fiction, however, than upon a massive three-volume narrative history of the Civil War that he started,

Almost on a lark, in the early 1950s and completed in 1974. In more recent years, Foote gained an even larger following as a result of his role as a commentator in Ken Burns's documentary The Civil War. The correspondence between Percy and Foote traces their lives from the beginning of their respective careers, when they were grappling most openly with their ambitions, artistic doubts, and assorted personal problems. Although they discuss such serious matters as the.

Death of Foote's mother and Percy's battle with cancer, their letters are full of sly humor, good-natured ribbing, and a large dose of self-mockery.