Ken and Thelma: The Story of A Confederacy of Dunces

by Joel Fletcher

Overview

“This valuable companion to Dunces will be a treat to those who’ve enjoyed the novel.”
—Larry Thornberry, Washington Times

Before it won the Pulitzer Prize and became an international bestseller, A Confederacy of Dunces was a rejected manuscript by an unknown New Orleans professor named John Kennedy Toole. It languished in a closet after Toole’s suicide for years until his mother discovered it. Almost as compelling as the novel’s plot is the story of the book’s publication and Toole’s posthumous winning of the Pulitzer Prize, driven by the indomitable will of his mother. From personal letters, contemporary journals, and family photos, author Joel L. Fletcher recalls his friendship with Toole during the early 1960s and his long, supportive friendship with Toole’s mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781455622825
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	02/01/2017
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	5.00(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

During his childhood in Lafayette, Louisiana, Joel L. Fletcher enjoyed meeting and learning from the various speakers, scholars, and artists who visited the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. This ignited a love and appreciation for history, literature, and art that has inspired Fletcher throughout his life.

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and completing a year of graduate school at Stanford, he briefly taught college-level English before moving to Europe. While abroad, he wrote extensively on travel and began studying art history and collecting art while working in the field of international educational exchange for the Council on International Educational Exchange and the City University of New York. Upon his return to America, Fletcher began a career as an art dealer. A specialist in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century fine art, he is now a certified art appraiser who has curated many exhibits and written essays for art magazines and museum catalogs. He also done extensive historical research into the true stories that inspire American literature. Fletcher lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he is a partner in Fletcher/Copenhaver Fine Art.