Editing Walker Percy (section)

===Early career===
In 1935, during the winter term of Percy's sophomore year at Chapel Hill, he contributed four pieces to ''The Carolina Magazine''. According to scholars such as Jay Tolson, Percy proved his knowledge and interest in the good and the bad that accompany contemporary culture with his first contributions. Percy's personal experiences at Chapel Hill are portrayed in his first novel, ''[[The Moviegoer]]'' (1961), through the protagonist Binx Bolling. During the years that Percy spent in his fraternity, [[Sigma Alpha Epsilon]], he "became known for his dry wit," which is how Bolling is described by his fraternity brothers in ''The Moviegoer''.<ref name=":03">{{Cite book|title=Pilgrim in the Ruins: a Life of Walker Percy|last=Tolson|first=Jay|publisher=Simon and Schuster|year=1992}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=The Moviegoer|last=Percy|first=Walker|publisher=Alfred A. Knopf|year=1961}}</ref>

Percy had begun in 1947 or 1948 to write a novel called ''The Charterhouse'', which was not published and Percy later destroyed. He worked on a second novel, ''The Gramercy Winner'', which 
also was never published.<ref name="Men of Letters"/>

Percy's literary career as a Catholic writer began in 1956 with an essay about race in the Catholic magazine ''[[Commonweal (magazine)|Commonweal]]''.{{sfnp|Elie|2003|pp=[https://books.google.com/books?id=EOZqLmBU4NoC&pg=PA247 247–248]}} The essay "Stoicism in the South" condemned [[segregated South|Southern segregation]] and demanded a larger role for Christian thought in Southern life.<ref>{{cite book|last=Percy|first=Walker|title=Signposts in a Strange Land|year=2000|publisher=Macmillan Publishers|pages=83–88|isbn=9780312254193|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EEzOeBHWnoIC&pg=PA83}}</ref>