William Alexander Percy: The Curious Life of a Mississippi Planter and Sexual Freethinker

by Benjamin E. Wise

In this evocative biography, Benjamin E. Wise presents the singular life of William Alexander Percy (1885-1942), a queer plantation owner, poet, and memoirist from Mississippi. Though Percy is best known as a conservative apologist of the southern racial order, in this telling Wise creates a complex and surprising portrait of a cultural relativist, sexual liberationist, and white supremacist.

We follow Percy as he travels from Mississippi around the globe and, always, back again to the Delta. Wise's exploration brings depth and new meaning to Percy's already compelling life story--his prominent family's troubled history, his elite education and subsequent soldiering in World War I, his civic leadership during the Mississippi River flood of 1927, his mentoring of writers Walker Percy and Shelby Foote, and the writing and publication of his classic autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee . This biography sets Percy's life and search for meaning in the context of his history in the Deep South and his experiences in the gay male world of the early twentieth century. In Wise's hands, these seemingly disparate worlds become one.

Genres: Biography, History

368 pages, Paperback

First published March 12, 2012

Reviews

[Matt Simmons · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sober, well-researched, well-written, and highly readable biography of a figure who receives too little credit and attention in our examinations of 20th century American literature. Wise's point is largely to show how Percy's life can reveal much about the history of gay culture and its evolution in the early 20th century, and he does a fine job of this. Yet, beyond that, he reveals the essential irony that exists underneath the surface of Percy's life, and reminds us that all of our lives are not a self-conscious construction nor something that just happens. Rather, our lives are a constant analysis and navigation of disparate parts of ourselves.

The story Wise tells of Percy is moving and complex; the biography, without intending to make an argument, decidedly makes a case for our re-evaluation of Percy as writer and artistic figure, and also has us reconsider just how complex and messy "the South" and its "conservatism" actually was--and continues to be. Is Percy as artist on the same page as his adoptive son, Walker, or Faulkner, or Richard Wright, or C.D. Wright? No. But, as Wise shows us here, he is, like those individuals, a vital and necessary figure for us to contend with if we are to understand the South, and its literature.

Also, big kudos to Wise for writing an academic biography that reads so wonderfully; if only everything that came from academic presses read like this, the work academic presses did would have a much larger audience.

[rick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads needs to let me leave reaction images on books

[Tim Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly researched and beautifully written. Ben Wise is an amazingly gifted historian.

[Frederick Nunley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I just finished reading a hard copy of this biography that was so well written I marveled at how compelling the narrative was. The gay history of a racist does not sound very compelling but I was curious how that person lived with the contradiction. I found out in his era it was pretty hard to be gay but also not clear that all people are equal and his suffer wing he didn’t see mirrored in the black people he tried to be good to? Sure helped to have this excellent bio to help sort all these contradictions out. As an elder gay man myself I was brought up in a racist world that changed gradually in so many good ways but still people are not equal and society isn’t fair to most. Looks like the freedoms won for many are in danger of being taken away. Well worth a read if you are curious about these themes.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at a complex and conflicted individual. Living as a white person with privilege who looked down at any non-white, trying to be gay and live in a conservative southern town…and more. The only thing that was a bit too much was the author’s occasional tendency to spend too much time interpreting Percy‘s poems, which detracted from the story.

[Kristin Towers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This felt like such a thorough and objective glance at William Alexander Percy’s life that shows both how complex relationships truly are, AND how easily we pigeon hole those in the past.

Very well compiled and gentle narrated, and I especially appreciated Wise acknowledging that, despite all of his research, there are pieces of the story we will never know.

[Nicholas · Rating 5 out of 5]

A first-rate biography of the MIssissippi poet and planter, William Alexander Percy, that doesn't stint either on his homosexuality or his backward racial politics, but rather uses both to give us a new picture of the South in the early twentieth century. It's also beautifully written.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed reading about the era and Will Percy's part in it. I'm afraid I'm a bit like Mr. Percy's mother; I preferred to root for him to do as the Wilkes of Georgia, and marry his cousin, though I knew it was a foregone conclusion.

[Lynn Shurden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book. Not a particularly easy or quick read, but one I thoroughly enjoyed. I feel like I learned more about the man that I ever envisioned.