Love in the Ruins

Love in the Ruins (subtitle:The Adventures of a Bad Catholic at a Time Near the End of the World) is a novel of speculative or science fiction by author Walker Percy from 1971.

More, a lapsed Catholic, alcoholic, and womanizer, invents a device that he names the Ontological Lapsometer, which can diagnose and treat the harmful mental states at the root of society's slow disintegration.

However, in the wrong hands, the device can also exacerbate the problems, and a government representative, intent on getting More a Nobel Prize, seeks to put it to his own uses while More attempts to prevent a disaster.

The novel investigates and satirizes many facets of American society, including religion, sexuality, medical and scientific ethics, and race relations.

As in many of Percy's other works, among them The Moviegoer, The Second Coming, and The Last Gentleman, the novel's protagonist suffers from alienation and existential doubt.