John Kennedy Toole was born in New Orleans in 1937. He wrote his first novel The Neon Bible at the age of sixteen for a literary contest. He excelled in school and went on to attend Tulane University and Columbia University, where he earned a Masters Degree in English. He served two years in the army, stationed in Puerto Rico, and it was there that he completed his second novel, A Confederacy of Dunces. He submitted the novel to publishers in 1963, and with the encouragement of John Gottlieb at Simon and Schuster, spent two years revising the novel, though it remained unpublished.
John Kennedy Toole's Professional and Personal Life
At the same time he worked on revising Confederacy, Toole taught at Dominican College in New Orleans, lived at home to help support his parents, and worked on pursuing his PhD in English. A quiet and reserved man in all aspects of his life, Toole talked little about his interests or pursuits. His writing career remained a virtual secret from both family, friends, and colleagues until after his tragic death.
John Kennedy Toole's Tragic Death
During the Fall semester of 1968, colleagues at the College noticed what editor W. Kenneth Holditch called "a growing paranoia" in Toole. In January 1969 he disappeared, both from the College campus and from his parents' home. There was no sign of him for three months. Where he went during that time is not entirely known, but his car was discovered near Biloxi Mississippi in March 1969. The body of the thirty-two year old writer and professor was inside the car, apparently dead by his own hand. Police investigating the scene found a suicide note addressed to his parents which his mother destroyed after reading.
Preserving John Kennedy Toole's Memory
John Kennedy Toole's works might never have been read were it not thanks to the diligence and determination of his mother to keeping her son's memory alive. In 1971, still agonizing over his death, Toole's mother Thelma came across the battered typescript of A Confederacy of Dunces. According to Holditch, finding the novel sparked a passion in Thelma Toole to see the novel published. This was because, according to Holditch, "Whatever message John's suicide note had contained, she convinced herself that it was the rejection of the novel that had made life unbearable for her darling."
Thelma Toole Finds a Publisher for A Confederacy of Dunces
Thelma spent five years, and went to eight different publishers trying to find a home for her son's novel. She coped with her husband's death, her own failing health, and rejection after rejection until finally putting the novel in the hands of Walker Percy in 1976, who at the time was teaching creative writing at Loyola University. Percy reluctantly agreed to read the battered typescript to appease the determined Mrs. Toole, hoping he could read a paragraph or two and then casually dismiss the work. But Percy could not dismiss the work, and with each paragraph and each page he read, became convinced of the genius of the novel's creator.
A Confederacy of Dunces Published to Worldwide Acclaim
Percy made arrangements with Louisiana State University Press to publish Confederacy, which they did in 1980, and the novel skyrocketed to immediate acclaim. In 1981 the novel won the Pulitzer Prize, and secured John Kennedy Toole's name within the pantheon of great American authors. Thelma Toole herself enjoyed brief period as a minor celebrity for her work in bringing her son's novel to the public, but according to Holditch, modestly remarked "I walk in the world for my son." During the peak of Confederacy's fame, and Mrs. Toole's own time in the spotlight, she befriended W. Kenneth Holditch, a protege of Walker Percy's, and revealed to Mr. Holditch the discovery of another novel manuscript among her son's personal effects. This turned out to be none other than the manuscript for Toole's first novel, The Neon Bible, which had languished in hiding since it's creation by the then sixteen year old Toole.
The Legal Battle and Publication of The Neon Bible
Draconian inheritance laws prevented Mrs. Toole from publishing the newly discovered novel because the rights to it were co-owned by other relatives of the Toole family. These relatives had sworn off rights to Confederacy at the time Mrs. Toole sought to publish it, thinking that nothing would come of the effort. With Toole's fame, and the potential for the new novel to be a bestseller the way Confederacy turned out, these relatives were sure to put up a legal battle for rights to the novel and the potential money it could bring in, and they did so shortly after Mrs. Toole passed away in August 1984, leaving the novel under the guardianship of Holditch.
Holditch protected for three years in Louisiana court her wish to see the novel go unpublished, until the court ruled that in order to settle the rights dispute that the novel would be put on the auction block to the highest bidder. Fearing for the fate of the novel, Holditch conceded defeat and allowed for The Neon Bible to be published with himself and the surviving members of the Toole family sharing joint rights to the novel. The novel was published in 1989.
John Kennedy Toole's Legacy
A Confederacy of Dunces and The Neon Bible are the only two works of John Kennedy Toole's literary legacy. If he ever wrote more than these two novels, no trace of such work has ever been found. Even so, these two works endure as testaments to the genius of their creator, whose life tragically ended too soon.
Sources:
Toole, John Kennedy. A Confederacy of Dunces. Wings Books, NY 1996.
---. The Neon Bible. Grove Press, NY 1989.
