Love in the Ruins/The Thanatos Syndrome (Magill’s Guide to Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature)
At a glance:
- Author: Walker Percy
- First Published: 1971
- Type of Work: Novels
- Type of Plot: Science fiction—cautionary
- Time of Work: The last decades of the twentieth century
- Setting: Paradise Estates and Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
- Genres: Long fiction, Science fiction, Satire
- Subjects: Race, South or Southerners, Twentieth century, Revolutions, Future, 1980’s, Good and evil, Wit or humor, Faustian bargains, Existentialism, Catholics or Catholic Church, Suburban life, Civil wars, Psychiatry or psychiatrists, Louisiana
- Locales: Louisiana
The Plot
Love in the Ruins and its sequel, The Thanatos Syndrome, were published sixteen years apart. In each work, readers follow the fallible Dr. Thomas More as he attempts to cure his own spiritual illnesses as well as those of a civilization falling apart around him.
Love in the Ruins focuses on a four-day period of social unrest and rebellion in Paradise Estates, Louisiana. More, an alcoholic who is suffering mood swings that resulted in his psychiatric hospitalization, has released himself and begun to prepare for a catastrophe imminent at the...
[The entire page is 1493 words long]
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