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It's been a while hasn't it? Sorry for the delay, rough last month since I moved to a new country, anyways the OP is finally here...
Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
Inatius Jacques Reilly is an overweight and unemployed thirty-year-old with a master's degree in Medieval History who lives with his mother, Irene Reilly. He utterly loathes the world around him, which he feels has lost the values of geometry and theology.
About John Kennedy Toole. (Redacted from wikipedia plss no bully, there wasn't a cool Britannica post for this one)
Toole was born to John Dewey Toole, Jr. and Thelma Ducoing Toole. Kennedy was the name of Thelma's grandmother. The first of the Creole Ducoing family arrived in Louisiana from France in the early 19th century, and the Tooles immigrated to America from Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s. As a child, Toole had an intense affection for his black nursemaid Beulah Matthews, who cared for him when his parents were both working.
Toole's highly cultured mother was a controlling woman, especially with her son. His father was less involved and sometimes complained of his lack of influence in their child's upbringing. Despite this, he and his father bonded through a mutual interest in baseball and cars. Toole's mother chose the friends he could associate with, and felt his cousins on his father's side were too common for him to be around. Toole received high marks in elementary school and, from a young age, expressed a desire to excel academically. He skipped ahead a grade, from first to second, after taking an IQ test at the age of six, and would also eventually skip the fourth grade.
Although an excellent student, Toole curtailed his stage work when he entered high school (Alcée Fortier High), to concentrate on his academic work.[ He wrote for the school newspaper Silver and Blue, worked on the yearbook The Tarpon, and won several essay contests on subjects such as the Louisiana Purchase and the American Merchant Marine. He took up debating, a skill his father had used to win the state debate championship when he was in high school. Toole spoke at gatherings of civic organizations such as Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs. Toole became the editor of the news section of the school newspaper, and maintained high marks throughout high school. He was one of two New Orleanians voted outstanding citizen at the Pelican (now Louisiana) Boys State convention and he was invited back to serve the following year as a counsellor. He received a full scholarship to Tulane University at age 17.
During his senior year, Toole wrote The Neon Bible, a short novel of Southern Gothic fiction that has been compared in style to Flannery O'Connor, a favorite author of Toole's. Toole later described the novel during correspondence with an editor, "In 1954, when I was 16, I wrote a book called The Neon Bible, a grim, adolescent, sociological attack upon the hatreds caused by the various Calvinist religions in the South—and the fundamentalist mentality is one of the roots of what was happening in Alabama, etc. The book, of course, was bad, but I sent it off a couple of times anyway."It failed to attract interest from publishers and was not released until after Toole's death.
At Tulane he first majored in engineering on the recommendation of his father; however, after a few weeks, he changed his major to English, stating "I'm losing my culture" to his mother in explanation. His closest friend was guitarist Don Stevens, nicknamed "Steve Cha-Cha", with whom he bonded over their shared love of blues music and Beat poets. Stevens also had a side job pushing a hot tamale cart around town and, on days when he was unavailable for work, Toole would fill in for him. According to Stevens' bandmate Sidney Snow, Toole loved eating the tamales. Toole later used these experiences as material for his novel A Confederacy of Dunces, whose protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly pushes a hot dog cart around town, usually eating most of the profits. Also, like Reilly, Toole later worked at a family business that manufactured men's clothing, Haspel Brothers. He worked for J.B. Tonkel, who married one of the Haspel daughters. "Ken watched the Haspels' business dealings with great interest, absorbing and remembering their troubles and intrigues,"and he later constructed the similar Levy Pants Company in Dunces, with Gus Levy and his wife becoming significant supporting characters in the novel.
Toole returned home in 1959 to spend a year as assistant professor of English at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL). It was at USL that Toole met Bob Byrne, an eccentric English professor who is considered one of the primary inspirations for the character of Ignatius J. Reilly. Byrne specialized in the medieval period, and he and Toole frequently discussed the philosopher Boethius and the wheel of Fortuna, as described in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius was the favorite philosopher of Ignatius J. Reilly, who frequently referred to Fortuna and Consolation of Philosophy. Like Ignatius, Byrne was a self-admitted devoted slob who played the lute, and also wore a deerstalker hunting cap, which Toole frequently chided him about.
Toole's studies were interrupted by his being drafted into the United States Army in 1961. Toole (who was fluent in Spanish) served two years at Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, teaching English to Spanish-speaking recruits. He rose quickly in the military ranks. In under a year, he attained the rank of sergeant, and received numerous awards and citations. While serving in Puerto Rico, he frequently traveled throughout the Caribbean, either alone or with members of his company. Toole, however, began to dread the frustrations of military life and the oppressive heat of Puerto Rico.
He also engaged in one of the favorite activities of military personnel on the island: alcohol consumption. Toole remarked in another letter to Fletcher, "We are all rotting here at the moment. The decreased draft has meant no trainees since June ... the inactivity here, coupled with the remnants of a rainy and enervating summer has (have?) plunged the English instructors into an abyss of drinking and inertia. Occasionally someone will struggle off to the beach or to San Juan, but the maxim here remains, 'It's too hot.'
Due to an incident in the army where a gay instructor attempted suicide Toole became withdrawn and began spending more and more time in his office typing what would eventually become his master work, A Confederacy of Dunces. It was not a secret that Toole was writing a book. Late at night, his fellow soldiers could often hear the sound of the typewriter keys. Although he was secretive about the novel among the other men, Toole showed the early portions of it to Kubach who gave him positive feedback.Around this time, Kubach was transferred and took his typewriter with him, so Toole was forced to buy his own. He later commented that he began to "talk and act like Ignatius" during this period as he became more and more immersed in the creation of the book.
Toole received a hardship discharge as his parents were having difficult economic times, his father struggling with deafness and an increasing incidence of irrational fear and paranoia. Toole looked forward to coming home and spending time talking with his mother. Toole turned down an offer to return to his post at Hunter, and arrived home to a teaching position at Dominican College, a Catholic all-female school. He initially liked the position as it allowed him to teach for only 10.5 hours a week and afforded him the same leisure time he had during his less active periods in the service. The nuns on the faculty were enamored with Toole from the start, considering him well mannered, genteel, and charming. He used his free time to work on his novel, and to spend some time with his musician friend Sidney Snow at Snow's home in the Irish Channel and at various night clubs where he would watch Snow and his bandmates perform, among other things, covers of songs by The Beatles. The November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy caused Toole to fall into severe depression. He stopped writing and drank heavily. In February 1964 he resumed writing, at which point he added an ending and sent the manuscript to Simon & Schuster.
The book eventually reached senior editor Robert Gottlieb, who had talked the then-unknown Joseph Heller into completing the classic comic novel Catch-22. Gottlieb and Toole began a two-year correspondence and dialogue over the novel which would ultimately result in bitter disappointment on both sides. While Gottlieb felt Toole was undoubtedly talented, he was unhappy with the book in its original form. He felt that it had one basic flaw which he expressed to Toole in an early letter:
It seems that you understand the problem—the major problem—involved, but think that the conclusion can solve it. More is required, though. Not only do the various threads need resolving; they can always be tied together conveniently. What must happen is that they must be strong and meaningful all the way through—not merely episodic and then wittily pulled together to make everything look as if it's come out right. In other words, there must be a point to everything you have in the book, a real point, not just amusingness that's forced to figure itself out.
Toole made an unannounced trip to see editor Robert Gottlieb in person at the Simon & Schuster building in New York City in February 1965. When he found out Gottlieb was out of town, Toole felt humiliated.
Initially, although Toole was disappointed that the novel could not be published as is, he was exuberant that a major publisher was interested in it. He entered his second year of teaching at Dominican as one of the favorite new professors on staff. Students marveled at his wit, and Toole would make entire classes burst into laughter while hardly showing any expression. He never retold a story or joke, and had many repeat students. Shortly before Christmas break in 1964, Toole received a letter from Gottlieb. In it Gottlieb remarked that he had shown the novel to Candida Donadio, a literary agent whose clients included Joseph Heller and Thomas Pynchon. Gottlieb told Toole they felt he was "... wildly funny often, funnier than almost anyone around".Also they liked the same portions and characters of the book and disliked the same parts as well. Gottlieb gave a list of things he did not like concluding with:
But that, all this aside, there is another problem: that with all its wonderfulnesses, the book—even better plotted (and still better plotable)—does not have a reason; it's a brilliant exercise in invention, but unlike CATCH [22] and MOTHER KISSES and V and the others, it isn't really about anything. And that's something no one can do anything about.
Later on in the letter, Gottlieb stated that he still had faith in Toole as a writer and that he wished to hold onto the manuscript in case he or Toole would be able to see a way around his objections. Toole decided that it would be best for Gottlieb to return the manuscript, saying "Aside from a few deletions, I don't think I could really do much to the book now—and of course even with revisions you might not be satisfied." Gottlieb re-iterated that he would not accept the novel without further revision. He suggested that Toole move on to writing something else, an idea which Toole ultimately rejected.
In a long, partially autobiographical letter he sent to Gottlieb in March 1965, Toole explained that he could not give up on the book since he wrote the novel largely from personal observation and because the characters were based on real people he had seen in his life.
I don't want to throw these characters away. In other words, I'm going to work on the book again. I haven't been able to look at the manuscript since I got it back, but since something of my soul is in the thing, I can't let it rot without trying.
Toole took the rejection of the book in his intended form as a tremendous personal blow .He eventually ceased work on Dunces and for a time left it atop an armoire in his bedroom. He continued to teach at Dominican where he remained a favorite among the student body with his classes regularly filling up well before official registration. His comedic performances during lectures remained especially popular among students.
By 1967, Toole began having frequent and intense headaches, and as aspirin was no help, he saw a doctor. The doctor's treatment was also ineffective, and he suggested Toole see a neurologist, an idea which Toole rejected.
The assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 added to his feelings of grief and heightened his paranoia. Several of Toole's longtime friends noticed he had an increasing sense of feelings of personal persecution. Toole went to see his friend Bob Byrne at his home in August 1968, where he again expressed sadness and humiliation that his book would not be published.
In the months before his suicide, Toole, who was usually extremely well groomed, "began to appear in public unshaved and uncombed, wearing unpolished shoes and wrinkled clothes, to the amazement of his friends and students in New Orleans."He also began to exhibit signs of paranoia, including telling friends that a woman who he erroneously thought had worked for Simon & Schuster was plotting to steal his book so that her husband, the novelist George Deaux, could publish it.
Toole became increasingly erratic during his lectures at Dominican, resulting in frequent student complaints, and was given to rants against church and state. Toward the end of the 1968 fall semester, he was forced to take a leave of absence and stopped attending classes at Tulane, resulting in his receiving a grade of incomplete. The Tooles spent Christmas of 1968 in disarray with Toole's father in an increasing state of dementia, and Toole searching the home for electronic mind-reading devices.
Toole was a lifelong admirer of Southern Gothic fiction writer Flannery O'Connor, and the novel The Neon Bible he wrote in high school is said to be resemblant of her writings. Shortly before his suicide, Toole attempted to visit the home of the deceased writer. Items found in Toole's car show that he drove to California where he visited Hearst Castle and then to Milledgeville, Georgia.Here he most likely attempted to visit Andalusia, the home of deceased writer Flannery O'Connor, although her house was not open to the public. This was succeeded by a drive toward New Orleans. It was during this trip that he stopped outside Biloxi, Mississippi, and died by suicide by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe in through the window of his car on March 26, 1969. His car and person were clean, and the police officers who found him reported that his face showed no signs of distress. An envelope discovered in the car was marked "to my parents". The suicide note inside the envelope was destroyed by his mother, who later gave varying vague accounts of its details. In one instance she said it expressed his "concerned feeling for her" and later she told a Times-Picayune interviewer that the letter was "bizarre and preposterous. Violent. Ill-fated. Ill-fated. Nothing. Insane ravings."He was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans.
After Toole's death, his mother Thelma Toole became mired in depression for two years and the manuscript for Dunces remained atop an armoire in his former room. She then became determined to have it published, believing it would be an opportunity to prove her son's talent. Over a five-year period, she sent it out to seven publishers and they each rejected it. "Each time it came back I died a little," she said. However, in 1976 she became aware that author Walker Percy was becoming a faculty member at Loyola University New Orleans. Thelma began a campaign of phone calls and letters to Percy to get him to read the manuscript. He even began complaining to his wife about a peculiar old woman's attempts to contact him. With time running out on his term as professor, Thelma pushed her way into his office and demanded he read the manuscript. Initially hesitant, Percy agreed to read the book to stop her badgering. He admitted to hoping it would be so bad that he could discard it after reading a few pages. Ultimately, he loved the book, commenting in disbelief:
In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity; surely it was not possible that it was so good.
Despite Percy's great admiration for the book, the road to publication was still difficult. It took more than three years, as he attempted to get several parties interested in it. A Confederacy of Dunces was published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, and Percy provided the foreword. At his recommendation, Toole's first draft of the book was published with minimal copy-editing, and no significant revisions. The first printing was only 2,500 copies, and a number of these were sent to Scott Kramer, an executive at 20th Century Fox, to pitch around Hollywood, but the book initially generated little interest. However, the novel attracted much attention in the literary world. A year later, in 1981, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book eventually sold more than 1.5 million copies, in 18 languages. In 2019, the PBS show, "The Great American Read," ranked Dunces the 58th (out of 100) most loved books in America..
Vote for your favorite book cover! (You can vote up to 3 times!)
20th Anniversary Edition.
Original Edition.
Jihad manual to American degeneracy edition.
Conjura de Imbeciles Edition.
Penguin Edition.
Gardner Books Edition.
German Edition
Conjura de los Necios 2 Electric Bogaloo Edition.
Frenchie Edition
Penguin Paperback Edition.
Ignatius O'reilly statue in New Orleans, judging your poor taste in fashion.
Happy Reading!
Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.
Inatius Jacques Reilly is an overweight and unemployed thirty-year-old with a master's degree in Medieval History who lives with his mother, Irene Reilly. He utterly loathes the world around him, which he feels has lost the values of geometry and theology.
About John Kennedy Toole. (Redacted from wikipedia plss no bully, there wasn't a cool Britannica post for this one)
Toole was born to John Dewey Toole, Jr. and Thelma Ducoing Toole. Kennedy was the name of Thelma's grandmother. The first of the Creole Ducoing family arrived in Louisiana from France in the early 19th century, and the Tooles immigrated to America from Ireland during the Great Famine of the 1840s. As a child, Toole had an intense affection for his black nursemaid Beulah Matthews, who cared for him when his parents were both working.
Toole's highly cultured mother was a controlling woman, especially with her son. His father was less involved and sometimes complained of his lack of influence in their child's upbringing. Despite this, he and his father bonded through a mutual interest in baseball and cars. Toole's mother chose the friends he could associate with, and felt his cousins on his father's side were too common for him to be around. Toole received high marks in elementary school and, from a young age, expressed a desire to excel academically. He skipped ahead a grade, from first to second, after taking an IQ test at the age of six, and would also eventually skip the fourth grade.
Although an excellent student, Toole curtailed his stage work when he entered high school (Alcée Fortier High), to concentrate on his academic work.[ He wrote for the school newspaper Silver and Blue, worked on the yearbook The Tarpon, and won several essay contests on subjects such as the Louisiana Purchase and the American Merchant Marine. He took up debating, a skill his father had used to win the state debate championship when he was in high school. Toole spoke at gatherings of civic organizations such as Kiwanis and Rotary Clubs. Toole became the editor of the news section of the school newspaper, and maintained high marks throughout high school. He was one of two New Orleanians voted outstanding citizen at the Pelican (now Louisiana) Boys State convention and he was invited back to serve the following year as a counsellor. He received a full scholarship to Tulane University at age 17.
During his senior year, Toole wrote The Neon Bible, a short novel of Southern Gothic fiction that has been compared in style to Flannery O'Connor, a favorite author of Toole's. Toole later described the novel during correspondence with an editor, "In 1954, when I was 16, I wrote a book called The Neon Bible, a grim, adolescent, sociological attack upon the hatreds caused by the various Calvinist religions in the South—and the fundamentalist mentality is one of the roots of what was happening in Alabama, etc. The book, of course, was bad, but I sent it off a couple of times anyway."It failed to attract interest from publishers and was not released until after Toole's death.
At Tulane he first majored in engineering on the recommendation of his father; however, after a few weeks, he changed his major to English, stating "I'm losing my culture" to his mother in explanation. His closest friend was guitarist Don Stevens, nicknamed "Steve Cha-Cha", with whom he bonded over their shared love of blues music and Beat poets. Stevens also had a side job pushing a hot tamale cart around town and, on days when he was unavailable for work, Toole would fill in for him. According to Stevens' bandmate Sidney Snow, Toole loved eating the tamales. Toole later used these experiences as material for his novel A Confederacy of Dunces, whose protagonist Ignatius J. Reilly pushes a hot dog cart around town, usually eating most of the profits. Also, like Reilly, Toole later worked at a family business that manufactured men's clothing, Haspel Brothers. He worked for J.B. Tonkel, who married one of the Haspel daughters. "Ken watched the Haspels' business dealings with great interest, absorbing and remembering their troubles and intrigues,"and he later constructed the similar Levy Pants Company in Dunces, with Gus Levy and his wife becoming significant supporting characters in the novel.
Toole returned home in 1959 to spend a year as assistant professor of English at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL). It was at USL that Toole met Bob Byrne, an eccentric English professor who is considered one of the primary inspirations for the character of Ignatius J. Reilly. Byrne specialized in the medieval period, and he and Toole frequently discussed the philosopher Boethius and the wheel of Fortuna, as described in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy. Boethius was the favorite philosopher of Ignatius J. Reilly, who frequently referred to Fortuna and Consolation of Philosophy. Like Ignatius, Byrne was a self-admitted devoted slob who played the lute, and also wore a deerstalker hunting cap, which Toole frequently chided him about.
Toole's studies were interrupted by his being drafted into the United States Army in 1961. Toole (who was fluent in Spanish) served two years at Fort Buchanan in Puerto Rico, teaching English to Spanish-speaking recruits. He rose quickly in the military ranks. In under a year, he attained the rank of sergeant, and received numerous awards and citations. While serving in Puerto Rico, he frequently traveled throughout the Caribbean, either alone or with members of his company. Toole, however, began to dread the frustrations of military life and the oppressive heat of Puerto Rico.
He also engaged in one of the favorite activities of military personnel on the island: alcohol consumption. Toole remarked in another letter to Fletcher, "We are all rotting here at the moment. The decreased draft has meant no trainees since June ... the inactivity here, coupled with the remnants of a rainy and enervating summer has (have?) plunged the English instructors into an abyss of drinking and inertia. Occasionally someone will struggle off to the beach or to San Juan, but the maxim here remains, 'It's too hot.'
Due to an incident in the army where a gay instructor attempted suicide Toole became withdrawn and began spending more and more time in his office typing what would eventually become his master work, A Confederacy of Dunces. It was not a secret that Toole was writing a book. Late at night, his fellow soldiers could often hear the sound of the typewriter keys. Although he was secretive about the novel among the other men, Toole showed the early portions of it to Kubach who gave him positive feedback.Around this time, Kubach was transferred and took his typewriter with him, so Toole was forced to buy his own. He later commented that he began to "talk and act like Ignatius" during this period as he became more and more immersed in the creation of the book.
Toole received a hardship discharge as his parents were having difficult economic times, his father struggling with deafness and an increasing incidence of irrational fear and paranoia. Toole looked forward to coming home and spending time talking with his mother. Toole turned down an offer to return to his post at Hunter, and arrived home to a teaching position at Dominican College, a Catholic all-female school. He initially liked the position as it allowed him to teach for only 10.5 hours a week and afforded him the same leisure time he had during his less active periods in the service. The nuns on the faculty were enamored with Toole from the start, considering him well mannered, genteel, and charming. He used his free time to work on his novel, and to spend some time with his musician friend Sidney Snow at Snow's home in the Irish Channel and at various night clubs where he would watch Snow and his bandmates perform, among other things, covers of songs by The Beatles. The November 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy caused Toole to fall into severe depression. He stopped writing and drank heavily. In February 1964 he resumed writing, at which point he added an ending and sent the manuscript to Simon & Schuster.
The book eventually reached senior editor Robert Gottlieb, who had talked the then-unknown Joseph Heller into completing the classic comic novel Catch-22. Gottlieb and Toole began a two-year correspondence and dialogue over the novel which would ultimately result in bitter disappointment on both sides. While Gottlieb felt Toole was undoubtedly talented, he was unhappy with the book in its original form. He felt that it had one basic flaw which he expressed to Toole in an early letter:
It seems that you understand the problem—the major problem—involved, but think that the conclusion can solve it. More is required, though. Not only do the various threads need resolving; they can always be tied together conveniently. What must happen is that they must be strong and meaningful all the way through—not merely episodic and then wittily pulled together to make everything look as if it's come out right. In other words, there must be a point to everything you have in the book, a real point, not just amusingness that's forced to figure itself out.
Toole made an unannounced trip to see editor Robert Gottlieb in person at the Simon & Schuster building in New York City in February 1965. When he found out Gottlieb was out of town, Toole felt humiliated.
Initially, although Toole was disappointed that the novel could not be published as is, he was exuberant that a major publisher was interested in it. He entered his second year of teaching at Dominican as one of the favorite new professors on staff. Students marveled at his wit, and Toole would make entire classes burst into laughter while hardly showing any expression. He never retold a story or joke, and had many repeat students. Shortly before Christmas break in 1964, Toole received a letter from Gottlieb. In it Gottlieb remarked that he had shown the novel to Candida Donadio, a literary agent whose clients included Joseph Heller and Thomas Pynchon. Gottlieb told Toole they felt he was "... wildly funny often, funnier than almost anyone around".Also they liked the same portions and characters of the book and disliked the same parts as well. Gottlieb gave a list of things he did not like concluding with:
But that, all this aside, there is another problem: that with all its wonderfulnesses, the book—even better plotted (and still better plotable)—does not have a reason; it's a brilliant exercise in invention, but unlike CATCH [22] and MOTHER KISSES and V and the others, it isn't really about anything. And that's something no one can do anything about.
Later on in the letter, Gottlieb stated that he still had faith in Toole as a writer and that he wished to hold onto the manuscript in case he or Toole would be able to see a way around his objections. Toole decided that it would be best for Gottlieb to return the manuscript, saying "Aside from a few deletions, I don't think I could really do much to the book now—and of course even with revisions you might not be satisfied." Gottlieb re-iterated that he would not accept the novel without further revision. He suggested that Toole move on to writing something else, an idea which Toole ultimately rejected.
In a long, partially autobiographical letter he sent to Gottlieb in March 1965, Toole explained that he could not give up on the book since he wrote the novel largely from personal observation and because the characters were based on real people he had seen in his life.
I don't want to throw these characters away. In other words, I'm going to work on the book again. I haven't been able to look at the manuscript since I got it back, but since something of my soul is in the thing, I can't let it rot without trying.
Toole took the rejection of the book in his intended form as a tremendous personal blow .He eventually ceased work on Dunces and for a time left it atop an armoire in his bedroom. He continued to teach at Dominican where he remained a favorite among the student body with his classes regularly filling up well before official registration. His comedic performances during lectures remained especially popular among students.
By 1967, Toole began having frequent and intense headaches, and as aspirin was no help, he saw a doctor. The doctor's treatment was also ineffective, and he suggested Toole see a neurologist, an idea which Toole rejected.
The assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 added to his feelings of grief and heightened his paranoia. Several of Toole's longtime friends noticed he had an increasing sense of feelings of personal persecution. Toole went to see his friend Bob Byrne at his home in August 1968, where he again expressed sadness and humiliation that his book would not be published.
In the months before his suicide, Toole, who was usually extremely well groomed, "began to appear in public unshaved and uncombed, wearing unpolished shoes and wrinkled clothes, to the amazement of his friends and students in New Orleans."He also began to exhibit signs of paranoia, including telling friends that a woman who he erroneously thought had worked for Simon & Schuster was plotting to steal his book so that her husband, the novelist George Deaux, could publish it.
Toole became increasingly erratic during his lectures at Dominican, resulting in frequent student complaints, and was given to rants against church and state. Toward the end of the 1968 fall semester, he was forced to take a leave of absence and stopped attending classes at Tulane, resulting in his receiving a grade of incomplete. The Tooles spent Christmas of 1968 in disarray with Toole's father in an increasing state of dementia, and Toole searching the home for electronic mind-reading devices.
Toole was a lifelong admirer of Southern Gothic fiction writer Flannery O'Connor, and the novel The Neon Bible he wrote in high school is said to be resemblant of her writings. Shortly before his suicide, Toole attempted to visit the home of the deceased writer. Items found in Toole's car show that he drove to California where he visited Hearst Castle and then to Milledgeville, Georgia.Here he most likely attempted to visit Andalusia, the home of deceased writer Flannery O'Connor, although her house was not open to the public. This was succeeded by a drive toward New Orleans. It was during this trip that he stopped outside Biloxi, Mississippi, and died by suicide by running a garden hose from the exhaust pipe in through the window of his car on March 26, 1969. His car and person were clean, and the police officers who found him reported that his face showed no signs of distress. An envelope discovered in the car was marked "to my parents". The suicide note inside the envelope was destroyed by his mother, who later gave varying vague accounts of its details. In one instance she said it expressed his "concerned feeling for her" and later she told a Times-Picayune interviewer that the letter was "bizarre and preposterous. Violent. Ill-fated. Ill-fated. Nothing. Insane ravings."He was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans.
After Toole's death, his mother Thelma Toole became mired in depression for two years and the manuscript for Dunces remained atop an armoire in his former room. She then became determined to have it published, believing it would be an opportunity to prove her son's talent. Over a five-year period, she sent it out to seven publishers and they each rejected it. "Each time it came back I died a little," she said. However, in 1976 she became aware that author Walker Percy was becoming a faculty member at Loyola University New Orleans. Thelma began a campaign of phone calls and letters to Percy to get him to read the manuscript. He even began complaining to his wife about a peculiar old woman's attempts to contact him. With time running out on his term as professor, Thelma pushed her way into his office and demanded he read the manuscript. Initially hesitant, Percy agreed to read the book to stop her badgering. He admitted to hoping it would be so bad that he could discard it after reading a few pages. Ultimately, he loved the book, commenting in disbelief:
In this case I read on. And on. First with the sinking feeling that it was not bad enough to quit, then with a prickle of interest, then a growing excitement, and finally an incredulity; surely it was not possible that it was so good.
Despite Percy's great admiration for the book, the road to publication was still difficult. It took more than three years, as he attempted to get several parties interested in it. A Confederacy of Dunces was published by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, and Percy provided the foreword. At his recommendation, Toole's first draft of the book was published with minimal copy-editing, and no significant revisions. The first printing was only 2,500 copies, and a number of these were sent to Scott Kramer, an executive at 20th Century Fox, to pitch around Hollywood, but the book initially generated little interest. However, the novel attracted much attention in the literary world. A year later, in 1981, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The book eventually sold more than 1.5 million copies, in 18 languages. In 2019, the PBS show, "The Great American Read," ranked Dunces the 58th (out of 100) most loved books in America..
Vote for your favorite book cover! (You can vote up to 3 times!)
20th Anniversary Edition.
Original Edition.
Jihad manual to American degeneracy edition.
Conjura de Imbeciles Edition.
Penguin Edition.
Gardner Books Edition.
German Edition
Conjura de los Necios 2 Electric Bogaloo Edition.
Frenchie Edition
Penguin Paperback Edition.
Ignatius O'reilly statue in New Orleans, judging your poor taste in fashion.
Happy Reading!
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