In Search of Self: Life, Death and Walker Percy

In Search Of Self teaches us how to recognize true, living selfhood in ourselves and in others, and how to recognize a failure to attain it, in our world which encourages "death-in-life. Taylor lends concreteness to the search for selfhood as he turns to characters in Walker Percy's novels who have reached selfhood in very real ways. He points out how certain choices and actions helped characters achieve a sense of themselves, and how we may make similar choices for our own lives. Taylor also uses Kierkegaard'a notion of the self and the self's stages of development to crystalize the readers' grasp on the meaning of selfhood.