Synopses & Reviews
John Kennedy Toole, who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces, wrote The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Toole's heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Toole's suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication. The Neon Bible tells the story of David, a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. David's voice is perfectly calibrated, disarmingly funny, sad, shrewd, gathering force from page to page with an emotional directness that never lapses into sentimentality. Through it we share his awkward, painful, universally recognizable encounter with first love, we participate in boy evangelist Bobbie Lee Taylor's revival, we meet the pious, bigoted townspeople. From the opening lines of The Neon Bible, David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole.
Review
Heartfelt emotion, communicated in clean direct prose . . . a remarkable achievement.”Michiko Kakutani,
The New York TimesA powerful novel that belongs on the shelf with the works of Flannery OConnor, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Welty. It is a moving evocation of the small-town South in the mid-twentieth century, and it is an expertly crafted tale of an adolescent boy finding the courage to make the decisions to change his life.”William McKeen, Orlando Sentinel
John Kennedy Tooles tender, nostalgic side is as brilliantly effective as his corrosive satire. If you liked To Kill A Mockingbird you will love The Neon Bible.”Florence King
Shockingly mature. . . . Even at sixteen, Toole knew that the way to write about complex emotions is to express them simply.”Kerry Luft, Chicago Tribune
Synopsis
John Kennedy Toolewho won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece
A Confederacy of Dunceswrote
The Neon Bible for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Tooles heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Tooles suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication.