This is one of those books that is almost unimaginable to objectively review. The writing is elegant and evocative of an era in the South that died almost in tandem with Mr. Percy and yet I find some parts of it so contemptuous and condescending...
Elegantly written with a accent all its own, William Alexander Percy's memoir provides an unreconstructed view of another time. Percy's sense of the slipping away southern aristocracy and the corresponding decline of his place in the South...
Percy's come near to life can be summed up by a quote from the book: "It is a very nice world-that is, if you remember that while morals are all-important between the Lord and His creatures, what counts between one material and another is good...
History 332 - Spring 2009: Lanterns on the Levee - Part 2
From his father's answer to "Colonel" Camp, the creation of the anti-Klan committee and ultimately the election as sheriff of Alexander the people of Greenville worked to the power of the Klan to keep growing in their community. That position in Greenville are simply due to the influence of LeRoy Percy, or were their other conditions in the community, that to the citizens to fight against the Klan. Percy writes about community opposition to the Klan in Greenville. Percy on page 201 suggests a belief that all men have an obligation to fight in the war, and had to be considered heroic.What influenced this need for Percy to go to war....