This Franklin Library edition of Walker Percy’s final novel, The Thanatos Syndrome, is a collector’s treasure, pairing the author’s provocative exploration of ethics and modernity with the publisher’s signature craftsmanship. The novel marks the return of Dr. Tom More, the bourbon-loving psychiatrist from Love in the Ruins, now freshly released from prison and drawn into a chilling medical conspiracy in Louisiana’s Feliciana Parish.
More discovers that local elites—including his cousin, Dr. Bob Comeaux—are secretly dosing the water supply with sodium-24, a chemical that suppresses human inhibitions, reducing people to primal, docile versions of themselves. Percy weaves his trademark Southern Gothic wit with profound questions about free will, the soul, and society’s hunger for control. The novel’s climax, involving a pedophile ring and a radioactive cure, is as unsettling as it is darkly comic.
“A signed first edition of Percy’s last stand—where the South’s decay meets dystopian science.”
