The Eighties in America - Salem Press (2009)

Confederacy of Dunces, A

Identification Prize-winning novel
Author John Kennedy Toole (1939-1969)
Date Published in 1980

The reading public’s imagination was captured as much by
the tragic stor y behindA Confederacy of Duncesas it
was by the novel itself. The New Orleans-set stor y was pub-
lished in 1980, eleven years after its author—despairing of
its publication—committed suicide.

A Confederacy of Dunceswas written in the 1960’s by
John Kennedy Toole. The book originally was ac-
cepted by the New York publisher Simon & Schuster,
but Toole’s editor insisted on changes he refused
to make; subsequently, the company dropped the
book. Toole’s suicide in 1969 was largely considered
to be a result of his plunge into a deep depression af-
ter the rejection of a novel he was convinced was his
masterpiece. The novel was noted for its protago-
nist, the roistering Ignatius J. Reilly, an intellectual
of massive appetites and numerous eccentricities
and phobias who was to some extent autobio-
graphical.
Somewhat sheltered by his mother and only at the
age of thirty required to seek employment, Reilly
finds work at a pants factory and operating a hot dog
cart, but in the main the narrative tracks him as he is
drawn into a series of wild and fantastic adventures
featuring various idiosyncratic characters and situa-
tions in the lively French Quarter of New Orleans.
While maintaining an intellectual disdain for mo-
dernity and purporting to adopt a renunciatory me-
dieval philosophy as his guide, Reilly paradoxically
revels in the anarchic and diverse world of New Or-
leans in the 1960’s, participating in that city’s free-
wheeling counterculture.
When Toole’s tenacious mother, Thelma, pressed
the novelist Walker Percy to read her son’s manu-
script, he became its enthusiastic champion, writing
an appreciative foreword to the 1980 edition. On the
basis of the story behind the novel and the novel’s
own colorful, inventive depiction of the denizens of
New Orleans in the 1960’s,A Confederacy of Dunces
quickly became both a literary and a commercial
success. Ahead of its time in the 1960’s but in tune
with the baby-boom generation that began to exert
its cultural power in the 1980’s, Toole’s magnum
opus was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize
in fiction in 1981.

Impact The publisher that initially rejectedA Con-

federacy of Dunceswas widely perceived in 1980 to have

been close-minded and retrograde. As a result, the

novel became a cultural cause célèbre, and the trag-

edy of the author’s suicide became a literary legend,

even to the point of overshadowing the novel itself.

Despite this competition from the story of the au-

thor’s life, the novel’s appealing depiction of a carni-

val of New Orleans outsiders, eccentrics, and sexual

renegades procured it a place in the canon of South-

ern literature. New Orleans especially took the novel

to its heart: A bronze statue of Ignatius J. Reilly was

placed under the clock at the Chateau Sonesta Hotel

in Canal Street, New Orleans.

Further Reading

Fletcher, Joel L.Ken and Thelma: The Stor y of “A Con-

federacy of Dunces.”Gretna, La.: Pelican, 2005.

Nevils, Rene Pol, and Deborah George Handy.Igna-

tius Rising: The Life of John Kennedy Toole. Baton

Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2001.

Margaret Boe Birns

See also Book publishing; Literature in the United

States.

Congress, U.S.

Definition The bicameral legislative branch of the

U.S. government consisting of the House of

Representatives and the Senate

During most of the 1980’s, both houses of Congress were not

controlled by the same political party. While the House

of Representatives maintained a Democratic majority

throughout the 1980’s, the Senate had a Republican major-

ity from 1981 until 1987.

Divided party control of Congress during most of

the 1980’s and the resumption of Democratic con-

trol of the Senate in 1987 were significant influences

on both legislative activity and executive-legislative

relations during the decade. Such major issues as tax

cuts, defense spending increases, deficit reduction,

nuclear arms control, judicial appointments, and

the Iran-Contra affair were dominated by partisan

politics. By the late 1980’s, the Democratic Con-

gresses and Republican presidents had become

nearly incapable of reaching effective compromises

or cooperating in major policy decisions, especially

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Confederacy of Dunces, A The Eighties in America