But one enduring aspect of Toole's legacy is that ultimately those who claim they have found the key, those who have supposedly decoded the underlying message of the novel, end up in Toole's crosshairs, for they become an Ignatius Reilly of sorts, attempting to narrow the focus of interpretation on a world that just doesn't make sense most of the time, a world too complicated to be reduced to a pattern or underlying
principle. Perhaps that was the point that Toole wanted to make in that rambling, confessional letter he sent to Gottlieb in 1965. In some parallel universe wherein Toole maintained his faculties and responded to the criticism that the book “isn't about anything,” one could imagine him replying with his trademark half-smile, “Of course it's not, Mr. Gottlieb. It's about everything.”
Ultimately, the classics of literature transcend the politic of an age. That which endures pushes through the shifts of society, unbound by time, speaking to something perpetual in the human experience. It is the creation of that lasting harmony that drives us back to the classics, to keep looking for something we didn't see before or remind ourselves of what it means to be human. In March of 1969 Toole must have felt he had lost touch with that harmony. But the man destroyed was not who his friends and family knew. They knew an artist in his prime observing the subtleties of the human character and knowing full well, at one point in time, he was creating his literary masterpiece.
This self-awareness, this confidence is evident in a picture of him in the Caribbean in the early 1960s; he leans on the sill of a glassless window frame; he stares into the distance with the slightest smile. It seems he knows something that we do not, as if we will someday behold his work. And then, in another picture, there is only the view from the window; the clouds have moved across the sky, but Toole is gone. He left this earth long before he could realize he had achieved that vision glimmering in his eyes. He accomplished what many writers only dream of. In his small room in Puerto Rico in 1963 he climbed to the top of the world and left behind the victorious and infectious laughter that overcomes mortality. It took nearly twenty years for the rest of us to hear it. But it remains today, echoing through cafes, libraries, and living rooms, wherever a reader opens up the first page of his novel and begins the riotous romp on Canal Street. With each chuckle and chortle, with each tear wiped from the cheeks of laughing readers, the shadow of his death shrinks as the celebration of his life continues.
And through the humor and tragedy of his story, through the brilliance of it all, he reached the heights that he once beheld just before he began writing his first novel at the age of sixteen. One night in 1954 on the side of a country road in Mississippi, he looked up in awe at the
cosmos as if searching for his own undying place in the Southern sky. His friend that stood next to him that night would never forget how John Kennedy Toole gasped “at the beauty of the millions of stars.” And while it may have cost him his life, he has now “taken his place among them.”
Acknowledgments
This book culminates a five-year journey of research and writing, which began when Toole's friend Joel Fletcher and his partner, John Copenhaver, opened their home to me on a cold winter day in 2005. Ever since, they have offered me a wealth of resources, insight, and encouragement. I am forever indebted to them.
Through Fletcher, I met filmmakers Joe Sanford, Charles Richard, and Bobbie Westerfield in February of 2009, as they started production of the documentary
John Kennedy Toole: The Omega Point
. Sanford and I struck an immediate friendship, which became a remarkable, creative relationship. Through sharing our findings and our musings, the biography and the documentary grew in tandem. They are separate projects, but they were largely shaped by our collaboration.
I am grateful to the entire staff at the Special Collections Library at Tulane University, especially Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Lee Miller, Susanna Powers, Eira Tansey, Sean Benjamin, Ann Case, and Lori Schexnayder. Without their stewardship to the John Kennedy Toole Papers, a biography of Toole would be impossible.
Other archives proved helpful as well. Bruce Turner at the Special Collections Library at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette gave me access to documents relating to Toole's time at the school. Also at ULL, James Wilson sent me unpublished information on Toole he had found in the estate of Patricia Rickels. The library at Hunter College and Columbia University provided materials detailing the climate of those institutions in the late 1950s and early '60s.
In addition to archival materials, much of the information gathered from the various stages of Toole's life came from interviews. His childhood friend John Geiser graciously gave me a tour of Uptown New Orleans as we chatted about his memories of the author. I appreciate Harold Toole, Emilie Dietrich Griffin, Rhoda Faust, Clayelle Dalferes, Jane Stickney Gwyn, Jane Pic Adams, Charlotte Powers, Sydney Poger,
Ellen Friedman, Mary Morgan, George Deaux, and John Hantel for the time they dedicated to answering my questions. Dawn Held at Lusher Charter School gave me access to Fortier newspapers and yearbooks. And Tyler Alpern provided information on Frances Faye. I am also delighted to have met Lynda Martin who recounted the many wonderful stories of Toole and her brother, Cary Laird, who passed away in 2008. Cary's partner, Myrna Swyers, also, retold the hilarious stories that Cary used to tell and contributed pictures of the influential Laird-Toole trip to Mississippi. I hope in some way this book serves as a testimony to the friendship between Toole and Laird.
It is quite possible that
A Confederacy of Dunces
would have never been written if it were not for Toole's experience in Puerto Rico. Dave Kubach, Tony Moore, Walter Carreiro, James Alsup, and Harry Edinger willingly shared their memories of Sergeant Toole as well as life in the army in Puerto Rico in the early 1960s.
Jo Ann Cruz and Karen Anklam of Loyola University set up several important interviews as well. I will always cherish the Saturday morning spent with Bunt Percy and Mary Pratt Percy Lobdell, casually chatting about their memories of Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, and Eudora Welty. By way of Anklam, I enjoyed an afternoon with Sister Dorothy Dawes, who once taught with Toole at St. Mary's Dominican College, followed by a tour of the old Dominican building. To the alumnae of Dominican, especially Joan Bowen, Elise Diament, Barbara Howard, Candace de Russy, and Pam GuerinâI have carried your heartfelt sentiments for Professor Toole throughout the writing of this book.
I am especially grateful to Robert Gottlieb who gave me permission to publish portions of his letters and offered his perspective on the issue of Toole and the accusations Thelma Toole made against him.
While I was many years too late to interview Bobby Byrne, fortunately Carmine Palumbo did so in 1995. And he graciously shared with me his recorded interview of a true New Orleans character.
Of course, this book would have been nothing more than an idea without my agent, William Clark; my editor, Ben Schafer; and the staff at Da Capo. The talents of Lori Hobkirk at the Book Factory, Cynthia Young at Sagecraft, copy editor Beth Fraser, and proofreader Sandy Chapman guided the book into print. The Popular Culture Association and American Culture Association provided an early source of support,
kindly awarding me a grant making possible my first research trip to New Orleans. And Matt Wunder contributed editorial feedback on one of the first drafts.
Furthermore, I thank Germanna Community College, especially David Sam and my colleagues Diane Critchfield, Michael Zitz Beckham, and the library staff, who encouraged me throughout this whole process.
Unfortunately, some people passed away during the writing of this book. Patricia Rickels and Nick Polites shared with me their priceless insights and I regret they never saw this biography in print.
I thank my mother and father who taught me to live life as a voyage of infinite possibilities.
And most of all I thank my wife (my first editor) for her unwavering support and my two children who weathered well my long durations of silence as I hacked away at the manuscript.
To all of those who I have mentioned and failed to mention here, I hope that these pages serve as the highest sign of my appreciation.
Notes
Introduction
xii Notably, Anthony Burgess . . . : Anthony Burgess, “Modern Novels: The 9 Best,”
New York Times Book Review
, February 5, 1984: 1, 33.
xii In the foreword . . . : Walker Percy, “Foreword,” in
A Confederacy of Dunces
, by John Kennedy Toole, viiâix (New York: Grove, 1980).
xii Percy writes . . . : Ibid.
xiii Dear Mr. Allsup . . . : Thelma Ducoing Toole letter to John Allsup, July 8, 1981, Box 12, Folder 5, the John Kennedy Toole Papers, Manuscripts Collection 740, Louisiana Research Collection, Tulane University (hereafter cited as Toole Papers).
xiii While Nevils and Hardy . . . : In a footnote, the publisher admitted to publishing the letters without Robert Gottlieb's permission and thanked him for not suing. René Pol Nevils and Deborah George Hardy,
Ignatius Rising: The Life of John Kennedy Toole
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001).
xiv Toole's friend Joel . . . : Joel L. Fletcher,
Ken and Thelma: The Story of A Confederacy of Dunces
(Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 2005).
xiv But as Fletcher . . . : Ibid.
xiv In
Ken and Thelma
. . . : Ibid.
xiv While she proclaims . . . : Thelma Ducoing Toole, “A Mother's Rememberence: I Walk in the World for My Son,” in
The Flora Levy Lecture in the Humanities Volume II: Gravity and Grace in the Novel A Confederacy of Dunces
, by Robert Coles (Lafayette: University of Southwestern Louisiana Press, 1981), 10â13.
xv Reminiscing over the . . . : Errol Laborde, “Remembering a Pulitzer Winner,”
New Orleans
, December 1981: 74â77.
Chapter 1: Roots
1 On a Sunday . . . : John Kennedy Toole letter to Robert Gottlieb, March 5, 1965. Joel L. Fletcher Papers, Manuscripts Collection 995, Louisiana Research Collection, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University (hereafter cited as Fletcher Papers).
1 For years he . . . : John Kennedy Toole letter to parents. May 15, 1963. Box 1, Folder 8, Toole Papers.
1 The novel he . . . :
I Walk in the World for My Son: An Interview with Thelma Ducoing Toole
, a film directed by Kenneth Holditch, Michael J. Adler, Barbara B. Coleman, and David A. Dillon, and featuring Thelma D. Toole, 1983.
1 He deemed the . . . : John Kennedy Toole letter to parents. May 15, 1963. Box 1, Folder 8. Toole Papers.
1 And his summer . . . : John Kennedy Toole letter to Joel Fletcher, July 9, 1961. Toole Papers.
1 His station in . . . : John Kennedy Toole letter to Robert Gottlieb, March 5, 1965. Fletcher Papers.
1 Distanced and unburdened . . . : Ibid.
1 He recalled a . . . : Ibid.
2 Pent up energies . . . : Ibid.
2 As his friend Joel Fletcher . . . :
John Kennedy Toole: The Omega Point
, directed by Joe Sanford and featuring Joel Fletcher, 2010.
2 Toole's earliest ancestor . . . : “Baby Book,” Box 5, Folder 16, Toole Papers.
2 Ducoing gained local fame . . . : Henry C. Castellanos,
New Orleans as It Was
(Gretna: Pelican Publishing, 1990).
3 Toole's mother proudly . . . : “Baby Book,” Box 5, Folder 16, Toole Papers.
3 Both a romanticized . . . : William C. Davis,
The Pirates Lafitte: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf
(Orlando: Harcourt, 2005).
3 Toole's honored ancestor [ . . . ] insurance fraud . . . : John Proffatt, “Millandon vs. New Orleans Ins. Co,” in
The American Decisions: Cases of General Value and Authority Volume XIII
(Rochester: Bancroft-Whitney, 1910), 358â360.
3 Toole's honored ancestor [ . . . ] founding . . . : William C. Davis,
The Pirates Lafitte: The Treacherous World of the Corsairs of the Gulf
(Orlando: Harcourt, 2005).
3 Perhaps stretching the truth . . . : David Kubach interview by the author, May 18, 2011.
3 In addition to his French ancestor . . . : Mary Orfila was the daughter of Frank Orfila. Frank Orfila of New Orleans is listed as “commission merchant” in the 1880 U.S. Census.
3 Initially seen as a source . . . : Joseph Lee and Marion R. Casey,
Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States
(New York: NYU, 2006).
3 But eventually, as families merged . . . : Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration,
New Orleans City Guide
(New Orleans: Garret County Press, 1938).
4 Toole's mother, Thelma . . . : “Receipt from Paul A. Ducoing,” Box 13, Folder 11, Toole Papers.
4 Later in life . . . :
I Walk in the World for My Son: An Interview with Thelma Ducoing Toole
, a film directed by Kenneth Holditch, Michael J. Adler, Barbara B. Coleman, and David A. Dillon, and featuring Thelma D. Toole, 1983.
4 A proud Creole . . . : Fletcher,
Ken and Thelma.
4 Unfortunately, her father . . . : Ibid.
4 Only later in life . . . : Ibid.
4 In 1920 she graduated . . . : “TD's Diploma,” Box 13, Folder 13, Toole Papers.
4 And in that same year . . . : “Southern Music Co. Diploma,” Box 13, Folder 12, Toole Papers.
4 For a time she entertained . . . :
I Walk in the World for My Son
, film.