Although Walker Percy named many influences on his work and critics have zeroed in on Kierkegaard in particular no one has considered his intentional influence the nineteenthcentury Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky. In a study that revives and complicates notions of adaptation and influence Jessica Hooten Wilson details the long career of Walker Percy.ampnbspWalker Percy Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Search for Influenceampnbspdemonstratesthrough close reading of both writers works examination of archival materials and biographical criticismnot only how pervasive and inescapable Dostoevskys influence was but also how necessary it was to the distinctive strengths of Percys fiction. ampnbsp ampnbsp From Dostoevsky Percy learned how to captivate his nonChristian readership with fiction saturated by a Christian vision of reality. Not only was his method of imitation in line with this Christian faith but also the aesthetic mode and very content of his narratives centered on his knowledge of Christ. The influence of Dostoevsky on Percy then becomes significant as a modern case study for showing the illusion of artistic autonomy and longheld Romantic assumptions about artistic originality. Ultimately Wilson suggests only by studying the good that came before can one translate it in a new voice for the here and now. ampnbsp