Lancelot

Walker Percy's 1977 novel is narrated by Lancelot Andrewes Lamar, a lawyer from the New Orleans gentry who sits in a mental institution recounting his past in a long monologue. The story turns on his discovery that he is not the father of his wife's youngest daughter, and on his belief that the culture of the 1970s has sunk into moral collapse. Set on gathering proof that his wife, an actress, has been unfaithful, he slides into obsession. Percy fills the book with Arthurian echoes, including characters named Merlin and Percival, and recasts the Grail quest as one man's crusade against the moral emptiness he sees around him, told by a narrator whose judgment is open to doubt.

Ryan Holiday reread it in 2016 and described it as a dark tale of revenge that tries to reach the core of evil.