According to Ryan Holiday, Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer is like the better, more mature cousin to The Catcher in the Rye. In this episode, Shilo Brooks sits down with the author and Daily Stoic founder to discuss the quiet Southern novel set in postwar New Orleans.

The book follows a Korean War veteran who has money, women, and a respectable job but whose inner life is defined by existential malaise and a spiritual itch that he calls “the search.” In the end, he resigns himself to the humdrum responsibilities of marriage and everyday life. Brooks and Holiday explore the book’s philosophical themes and its continued relevance in a media-saturated world where many of us, still starved for meaning, try to turn our own existence into a social-media performance.

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