I'm not sure I know what it means to be meek and humble of heart. Nor am I sure meekness and humility help one write great fiction. I don't know how to write very well. It's an everyday effort from which my ego suffers many bruises. I wish I knew an authority like Walker Percy to ask for advice. Being dead, he's out of the question . . . or is he?
At the age of nearly forty Mr. Percy gave up and said he just couldn't do it--whatever writing a novel took, he did not have it. Beyond that moment, he wrote The Moviegoer. Published in 1961, the novel won the 1962 National Book Award. Mr. Percy came to a moment of humility and defeat, then did something wonderful.
Did having Shelby Foote to guide him help or hinder? Do we really need our own Shelby Footes? (Don't you just want to say Feete?) Maybe. Lacking them, do we stumble onto our own writers' grace?
If I didn't believe so, I'd be mopping my kitchen floor and dusting furniture right now.
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