<div><p><B>This classic coming-of-age novel, winner of the Lippincott Fiction<BR>Prize for Young Novelists in 1954, is a deliberately comic portrayal of<BR>"Mobile madness," a malady specific to the Gulf Coast but recognizable<BR>by all.</B></P> <p>Eugene Walter's first novel is about a young man from a small central<BR>Alabama town who goes south of the "salt line" to Mobile to work in a bank<BR>and study law. As soon as this unnamed pilgrim arrives, he realizes<BR>that--although he is still in Alabama—he has entered a separate physical<BR>kingdom of banana trees and palm fronds, subtropical heat and humidity,<BR>old houses and lacy wrought-iron balconies. In the "land of clowns" and<BR>the "kingdom of monkeys"—in the town that can claim the oldest Mardi Gras<BR>in America--there is no Puritan work ethic; the only ruling forces are those<BR>of chaos, craziness, and caprice. Such forces overtake the pilgrim, seduce<BR>him away from the beaten career path, and set him on a zigzag course through<BR>life.</P> <p><I>The Untidy Pilgrim </I>celebrates the insularity<BR>as well as the eccentricity of southerners—and Mobilians, in particular—in<BR>the mid-20th century. Cut off from the national mainstream, they are portrayed<BR>as devoid of that particularly American angst over what to "do" and accomplish<BR>with one's life, and indulge instead in art, music, cooking, nature, and<BR>love. In this novel Walter eschews the "gloom and doom" southern<BR>literary tradition established by Faulkner, Capote, and McCullers to illuminate<BR>the joyous quirkiness of human existence.</P> <p>In 1954 this refreshing approach to the southern<BR>scene garnered the praise of the judges for that year's Lippincott Fiction<BR>Prize, Jacques Barzun, Diana Trilling, and Bernard DeVoto. This reissue<BR>of the paperback in The University of Alabama Press's Deep South Books<BR>series assures yet another generation the delight of Eugene Walter's award-winning<BR>romp through Mobile.</P></DIV>