{"product_id":"a-confederacy-of-dunces-9780807159606","title":"A Confederacy of Dunces","description":"\u003cp\u003eAfter four decades, the peerless wit and indulgent absurdity of \u003ci\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces\u003c\/i\u003e continues to attract new readers. Though the manuscript was rejected by many publishers during John Kennedy Toole's lifetime, his mother successfully published the book years after her son's suicide, and it won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This literary underdog and comic masterpiece has sold more than two million copies in over two dozen languages. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ci\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces\u003c\/i\u003e features one of the most memorable protagonists in American literature, Ignatius J. Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubbed \"slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one.\" Set in New Orleans with a wild cast of characters including Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levi Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; and Jones, the jivecat in space-age dark glasses, the novel serves as an outlandish but believable tribute to a city defined by its parade of eccentric denizens. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe genius of \u003ci\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces\u003c\/i\u003e is reaffirmed as successive generations embrace this extravagant satire. Adulation for Toole's comic epic remains as intense today as it was at the time of its initial publication.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Kennedy Toole was born in New Orleans in 1937 and died in 1969. After graduating from Tulane University, he received a master's degree from Columbia University and taught at Hunter College, the University of Southwestern Louisiana, and Dominican College. Much of the first draft of \u003ci\u003eA Confederacy of Dunces\u003c\/i\u003e was written while he was in the army, stationed in Puerto Rico and teaching English to new recruits.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"LSU Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50607271411986,"sku":"9780807159606","price":25.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_2e87db7b-5ca1-45d6-b5e7-2ecf628a559d.jpg?v=1732306684","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/a-confederacy-of-dunces-9780807159606","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}