false 54123 12 <div>John Kennedy Toole, who won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpiece <i>A Confederacy of Dunces</i>, wrote <i>The Neon Bible</i> 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. <i>The Neon Bible</i> 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 <i>The Neon Bible,</i> David is fully alive, naive yet sharply observant, drawing us into his world through the sure artistry of John Kennedy Toole.</div> 2391668 1989 The Neon Bible total:976|5:154|4:365|3:330|2:111|1:16| 976 3458 1373 118 5 2 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 23 10:05:45 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 23 10:08:46 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Oct 23 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 19 08:13:57 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 31 17:12:27 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Oct 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 12:59:18 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 09 12:59:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Jan 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 23 23:13:12 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 26 10:26:45 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun May 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Dec 04 09:24:05 -0800 2008 Thu Jun 18 19:38:34 -0700 2009 once more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 18 07:16:51 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 08:47:37 -0700 2008 Mon Aug 18 07:16:51 -0700 2008
the author committed suicide and was known to have only written one book in his lifetime (for which he won a posthumus pulizer ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Jun 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Jun 18 12:09:41 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 23 06:43:36 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Aug 16 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Apr 18 23:12:09 -0700 2008 Thu Apr 24 12:13:33 -0700 2008 “Thinking people feel sorry for you is something I guess you should appreciate, but I didn’t and never have."

First of all, for anyone to have written a novel like this at age sixteen is nothing short of amazing. Granted, some of the description does not entirely ring true, bu...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Dec 24 06:48:02 -0800 2007 Fri Jan 25 00:26:21 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Wed Sep 26 13:24:48 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 13:32:35 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Thu Jul 12 10:31:37 -0700 2007 Fri Jan 04 14:31:04 -0800 2008
Then he decided to bury the original manuscript of "The Neon Bible" in a drawer considering it too juvenile and immature to have any chance to be published.

Twenty years ...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon May 18 23:26:04 -0700 2009 Sat May 23 21:46:29 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jan 03 12:35:58 -0800 2008 Tue Nov 06 07:28:50 -0800 2007 Tue Nov 06 07:28:50 -0800 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Nov 07 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 07:44:32 -0800 2009 Sat Nov 07 19:33:30 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Oct 16 17:42:01 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 16 17:46:07 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Mar 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Mar 08 18:52:58 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 10 11:10:18 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Mar 24 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Feb 19 15:10:23 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 28 19:43:12 -0700 2009 once
how they did things in the olden days:
'We got oleomargarine for the first time, too. When I first saw it, I thought it was lard. Mother brought the ...more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Nov 06 21:31:49 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 21:31:49 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Thu Dec 20 22:57:33 -0800 2007 Mon Mar 03 20:58:21 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 16 16:25:57 -0700 2007 Fri Sep 21 07:32:32 -0700 2007 And I shou...more...]]>