The Second Coming

Blurb

The Second Coming is a novel by Walker Percy. It is a sequel to The Last Gentleman. It tells the story of middle-aged Will Barrett and his relationship with Allison, a young woman who has escaped from a mental hospital. The book was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1980.
The novel spends much of its content in unspoken but printed dialog of Will Barrett with himself and/or people he has dealt with in his past. He talks his way through his memories and realizes he is a character who suffers from the affliction that his father had: the belief that life -- as most people live it -- is worse than death. His father's solution was to kill himself, but his father also opted to try to kill him, in order to save him from the life of despair that his father knows will befall him. He reflects on these occurrences throughout the book.
Barrett decides he will put God to the test. He will enter a cave near his home in North Carolina, telling no one what he is doing but leaving notes in case he does not return, and take barbiturates until God proves His existence and love by saving him, or he dies, thus demonstrating God does not exist.