Kennedy was the name of Thelma's grandmother. In 1981, Toole was posthumously awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Some years later, his mother brought the manuscript of Dunces to the attention of novelist Walker Percy, who ushered the book into print. He stopped in Biloxi, Mississippi, ending his life.

Suffering from depression and feelings of persecution, Toole left home on a journey around the country.

Despite several revisions, Gottlieb remained unsatisfied, and after the book was rejected by another literary figure, Hodding Carter Jr., Toole shelved the novel. Gottlieb considered Toole talented but felt his comic novel was essentially pointless. Toole submitted Dunces to publisher Simon & Schuster, where it reached editor Robert Gottlieb. After receiving a promotion, he used his private office to begin writing A Confederacy of Dunces, which he finished at his parents' home after his discharge. His studies were interrupted when he was drafted into the army, where he taught English to Spanish-speaking recruits in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He also taught at various Louisiana colleges, and during his early career as an academic he was valued on the faculty party circuit for his wit and gift for mimicry. After graduating from Tulane, he studied English Literature at Columbia University in New York while teaching simultaneously at Hunter College. Toole received an academic scholarship to Tulane University in New Orleans. At 16 he wrote his first novel, The Neon Bible, which he later dismissed as 'adolescent'. With his mother's encouragement, Toole became a stage performer at the age of 10 doing comic impressions and acting. She was thoroughly involved in his affairs for most of his life, and at times they had a difficult relationship. From a young age, his mother, Thelma, taught him an appreciation of culture. Toole was born to a middle-class family in New Orleans. Due in part to these failures, he suffered from paranoia and depression, dying by suicide at the age of 31.

Although several people in the literary world felt his writing skills were praiseworthy, Toole's novels were rejected during his lifetime. John Kennedy Toole ( / ˈ t uː l/ Decem– March 26, 1969) was an American novelist from New Orleans, Louisiana, whose posthumously published novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981 he also wrote The Neon Bible.

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