John Kennedy Toole
There is something tragic about not having one's genius recognized until after one's death.
Likewise, there is something tragic about dying before one is published-especially when one's book goes on to win a Pulitzer Prize. Thus was the fate of John Kennedy Toole.
Born in 1937 in New Orleans, he led a sheltered life raised by a mother who was convinced that he was a genius. He earned degrees from Tulane University and Columbia University, becoming an English professor at the University of Southwestern Louisiana and Hunter College.
In 1961, before he could complete a doctorate at Columbia, he was drafted into the army. He spent two years in Puerto Rico, teaching English to Spanish-speaking recruits.
After getting out of the army and returning to teaching, he wrote A Confederacy of Dunces, a comic novel which he believed to be a masterpiece. He briefly won a publisher's interest, but they then backed down on the sale, and Toole lost hope about getting his book published.
Thus began his rapid downfall as he spiraled into depression, began drinking heavily, and quit his job. In 1969 he committed suicide. His mother insisted that fellow author Walker Percy read Toole's manuscript. He did and helped to get it published in 1980. In 1981, the book would win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Also published posthumously was a book that Toole wrote in his youth-a book that he himself considered too "juvenile" for publication.
Bibliography
A Confederacy of Dunces |
The Neon Bible |
