The long-awaited biography of John Kennedy Toole ("A Confederacy of Dunces"), whose fascinating life and tragic death is one of the most amazing publishingstori

Released by Louisiana State University Press in 1980, A Confederacy of Dunces is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon. Rejected by countless publishers and

“A moving evocation of the small-town South in the mid-twentieth century” that “belongs on the shelf with the works of Flannery O’Connor, Carson McCulle

"Ken has a real gift for mimicry and a refined sense of the absurd . . . the English faculty . . .both fear and court Ken because of his biting comic talent." -

This collection, the first of its kind, brings together specially commissioned academic essays to mark fifty years since the death of John Kennedy Toole.