John Kennedy Toole was a novelist and college professor, born on December 17, 1937, in New Orleans, Louisiana. He completed two novels during his brief life: the first, Neon Bible, which he wrote in high school, he later distanced himself from, labeling it "adolescent"; the last, A Confederacy of Dunces, the majority of which he wrote while serving in the Army as an English language instructor, never found substantive recognition and remained unpublished during Toole's lifetime. After struggling with a persistent sense of literary failure, Toole developed depression and a sense of personal persecution that worsened through subsequent years and eventually destroyed the success he had...
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