Ken and Thelma

Book excerpt: "Ken has a real gift for mimicry and a refined sense of the absurd . . . the English faculty . . .both fear and court Ken because of his biting comic talent." --from Joel L. Fletcher's journal John Kennedy Toole's first published novel, A Confederacy of Dunces, which Walker Percy called a"gargantuan tumultuous human tragi-comedy," became a publishing phenomenon, with almost two million copies in print worldwide in eighteen languages. The book's outrageous protagonist, Ignatius Reilly, is an icon of contemporary American fiction. Now Ken and Thelma sheds new light on the tragic life story of the author, known as 'Ken' to his friends. Drawing on his own journals and personal letters, Joel L. Fletcher recreates his friendship with Ken in the early 1960s and his long association with Ken's indomitable mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole, after the book's publication. Ken and Thelma features personal photographs, many never before published.