It got dark on the porch after the clouds began to cover the moon. Pretty soon there was just a white glow in the sky covered by gray smoke. You could see the shadows of the clouds on the hills moving fast across the valley. Soon the whole sky was full of gray smoke from the south, and it looked like the valley had a gray lid on it. A rumbling began at the far hill and spread across the sky until it shook the house. The sky lit up off and on like one of the signs on Main Street, except without color, just like a silver glow. The kind of cool breeze that always comes before a rain started up, and soon I could hear the first big drops on the porch roof and fell them hitting my knees. They hit the clay with a steady thump and made the cinders shine.
Those words were penned in 1954, by an author that very few people have ever heard of, in one of the greatest literary tragedies in America.
Please follow me for a brief retelling of his life and his creations. I hope you enjoy
John Kennedy Toole was born in 1937 in New Orleans. His early life was troubled, dominated by his mother, and involving little that most of us would consider a normal childhood.
At the age of 16 he penned "The Neon Bible". This book is a piece of great writing by a young writer, that is at times eerily reminiscent of other great Southern writers. The story tells the life of a young boy, who grows up in a tiny Southern town in the 1940s. The boy's life is shaped almost entirely by his Aunt Mae, an eccentric singer and performer who is too old to make it on stage any more.
The story of the book and its publication is part of this depressing story, but I will get to that later.
The other work by Toole is "A Confederacy of Dunces". Set in early 1960s New Orleans, this work is one of the best pieces of American Fiction I have ever read. It is a cross between Don Quixote and Gargantua set in the deep south.
This book, a comedy with tragic undertones, or maybe a tragedy that is comedic, follows the story of Ignatius J Reilly, a young man obsessed with the author Boethius, the concept of Fortuna, and the depravities of modern life. Forced to find "honest employment" he fails spectacularly at jobs such as hotdog salesman, and factory worker.
A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles that grew in the ears themselves, stuck out on either side like turn signals indicating two directions at once. Full, pursed lips protruded beneath the bushy black moustache and, at their corners, sank into little folds filled with disapproval and potato chip crumbs.
Both of these books are worth buying, and reading time and again. But, having said that, this is where the story turns tragic.
Having written "The Neon Bible", Toole hid the book away in a drawer. He thought the book was juvenile, and not worth publishing. This view is not too surprising, how many of us are proud of what we did at the age of 16? Not too long after writing it he earned degrees from Tulane and Columbia. After being drafted, and spending two years in the Army, he returned to New Orleans.
Starting in 1963 Toole spent time teaching at Dominican College, working odd jobs, and spending as much time as possible in the French Quarter of New Orleans. It was around this time that he wrote "A Confederacy of Dunces". The book was submitted to Simon and Schuster, but was rejected. That rejection touched off a bout of depression and drinking.
On March 26th, 1969 John Kennedy Toole committed suicide.
His books were the subject of great controversy between his family and his mother. "A Confederacy of Dunces" was not taken to another publisher until 1976, and was not published until 1980.
Upon its publication the book became an almost instant cult classic. Toole was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981. But then, there was even more controversy over the manuscript of "The Neon Bible". That controversy was not solved until 1989, when the book was finally published.
Knowing the history makes these books extra tragic when one considers the future that this author had. If he had lived long enough to write many more books, his name would likely be the equal of Flannery O'Connor, Harper Lee, Tennessee Williams and others.
I highly recommend that you follow the links above and buy these books. The picture that "The Neon Bible" paints of a small town in the 1940s south is a must read for anyone interested in America, and "A Confederacy of Dunces" should be required reading in every school in America standing next to Huck Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird.