Neon Bible - Softcover

Toole, John Kennedy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802132073 ISBN 13: 9780802132079

Publisher: Grove Press, 1990

Synopsis

John Kennedy Toole--who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece A Confederacy of Dunces--wroteThe 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.

About this title

Review:

"Heartfelt emotion, communicated in clean direct prose . . . a remarkable achievement."--Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

"A powerful novel that belongs on the shelf with the works of Flannery O'Connor, 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 Toole's 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:

David's father goes off to war, leaving David and his mother to fight poverty and shame on their own in a small Southern town.

About this edition

• Publisher: Grove Press
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0802132073
• ISBN 13: 9780802132079
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176