Ken and Thelma: The Story of A Confederacy of Dunces

PELICAN PUBLISHING

Joel Fletcher

Before it won the Pulitzer Prize and became an international bestseller, A Confederacy of Dunces was a rejected manuscript by an unknown New Orleans professor named John Kennedy Toole. It languished in a closet after Toole's suicide for years until his mother discovered it. Almost as compelling as the novel's plot is the story of the book's publication and Toole's posthumous winning of the Pulitzer Prize, driven by the indomitable will of his mother. From personal letters, contemporary journals, and family photos, author Joel L. Fletcher recalls his friendship with Toole during the early 1960s and his long, supportive friendship with Toole's mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole.

A Confederacy of Dunces, which Walker Percy called a"gargantuan tumultuous human tragi-comedy," became a publishing phenomenon, with almost two million copies in print worldwide in eighteen languages. The book's outrageous protagonist, Ignatius Reilly, is an icon of contemporary American fiction. Now Ken and Thelma: The Story of A Confederacy of Dunces sheds new light on the tragic life story of the author, known as 'Ken' to his friends. Drawing on his own journals and personal letters, Joel L. Fletcher recreates his friendship with Ken in the early 1960s and his long association with Ken's indomitable mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole, after the book's publication. Ken and Thelma features personal photographs, many never before published.

Joel L. Fletcher is a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, and was educated at Tulane and Stanford. He served as a gunnery officer in the U.S. Navy, directed a language school in Florence, Italy, and worked in France and England in the field of educational exchange for the Council on International Educational Exchange and the City University of New York. He has been a long-standing dealer in fine art, has written widely on art, and has curated a number of museum exhibitions. He resides in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and is a partner in Fletcher/Copenhaver Fine Art, specializing in nineteenth and early twentieth century American and European fine art.

Publication Date: 2005

Pages: 216