The New Jewish Walker Percy?

To me, there are two kinds of New Orleans writers,  those who remind us of Walker Percy and those who evoke John Kennedy Toole. The Percy breed is cool, literary, philosophical,  professorial; the Toole types are like an Italian family at dinner—noisy, street smart,  practically smelling of  red gravy and sweat. I’m exaggerating, of course, and now I’m about to get reductive: Percy=cool, Toole= warm.

Like this maybe:

Team Percy--Valerie Martin, say; or John Biguenet. Team Toole--Andrei Codrescu, perhaps;  James Nolan, Amanda Boyden. I don’t know, I’m probably blowing it. What I mean is, a certain reserve, a sly subtlety, as opposed to an unbridled exuberance, a great ear for street speech. Weirdly, I could think of more Percy descendents than Tooles, though in my heart I feel sure we  have more Tooles. But we’re always looking for the  successor to Walker Percy. It’s kind of a primal yearning around here. (Could  have been Martin, I think,  but she doesn’t write much about New Orleans these days. And Biguenet’s off doing plays.)  I was astounded to see the late great one himself was on the lookout for us before he croaked. Someone just sent me this quote from the man himself:

"I make no claim to prophetic powers, yet I make bold to predict that the next Southern literary revival will be led by a Jewish mother, which is to say, a shrewd self-possessed woman with a sharp eye and a cunning retentive mind who sees the small triumphs and tragedies around her and has her own secret method of rendering it, with an art all her own and yet not unrelated to Welty, O'Connor, and Porter."

 Signposts in a Strange Land--Walker Percy

Wow, I thought. Patty Friedmann! But—full disclosure here—booksBnimble just published her ebook, TOO JEWISH. So of course I’d think of her. But I would have anyway (really I would) because she’s the real deal. Sharp eye? Check. Cunning? Watch out! Secret method? Damn her-- I’m always trying to figure out how she does it. And boy does she have an ear. Wonder if Mr. Percy was onto something. But let’s discuss. Got any more candidates?