A week later Knopf expressed no desire to publish the novel and returned it to Thelma.
She then sent the manuscript to W. W. Norton. They acknowledged the merits of the novel, but declined in straightforward language. Norton’s response burned into Thelma’s memory, words she would frequently recall years later. “It has literary style, but comic novels don’t sell.” It struck Thelma as odd. She could name many comic novels that had sold very well. But the comment rang true to some of the remarks Gottlieb articulated to Toole in 1965, regarding the difficulty of placing his novel.
Perhaps feeling rebuffed from the New York publishing world, she turned to Pelican Publishing, based in Louisiana, which also declined. In July she sent it back to New York to Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. They were kind enough to send an acknowledgment, explaining the industry standard of six to eight weeks for a reply (a standard that Knopf had upheld). They ultimately declined the novel.
Thelma grew frustrated. It seemed the novel’s prospect of publication had worsened over the years. In 1964 her son was revising it for a New York editor, and in 1973 she could barely find a publisher with an interest in it. “Each time I sent it off first class and it came back bulk rate,” she remembered bitterly. From New York to Louisiana, it seemed to her the whole publishing industry was populated by dunces set on muting her son’s last letter to the world. When asked why she thought so many publishers rejected it, she answered, “Stupidity.”
To make matters worse, her health started to decline, forcing her to take a break from submitting the manuscript. Her weakened state rendered her situation in Uptown impossible. Reluctantly, she made the decision to move back to Elysian Fields with her brother, Arthur. They had a strained relationship at times, although he seems to have been the closest uncle to her son. She referred to him as “the poet laureate of the Standard Fruit Company,” a sneering chide for the poor verse he would occasionally write for coworkers and friends. But there was nowhere else for her to go. Thelma and Arthur were the only living Ducoing siblings, and he was alone in his house. She packed up her belongings, all the memorabilia of her son and family history—from his birth certificate to his high school math homework—and left behind their Uptown home. By August of 1975 Thelma was living with her meager but devoted brother in the small house on Elysian Fields, the same house in which her brother George went certifiably insane. It was a few doors down from the much larger house in which she grew up.
She spent much of her time indoors, claiming in 1976 that she was a “shut-in” with “failing health.” Her brother did her errands around town and helped her with her finances. And despite health complications, she became determined to go through another round of submissions. She made an odd choice in sending it to the Third Press, a small house in New York that primarily published books with a specific African American interest, although in 1971 the owner of the press declared he had no “ideological axe to grind.” The Third Press released a few titles that veered from its original focus on racial issues, but they were popularly billed as a black publisher. Perhaps Thelma thought the justice that Confederacy offers Burma Jones might be attractive to them. They declined.
Thelma sent the manuscript to eight publishers; she received eight rejections. And like her son, she took the responses to heart. With each rejection, she “died a little,” she said. But she showed initiative and endurance in submitting the manuscript. From Thelma’s perspective she offered a publisher a rare gem. From a publisher’s perspective, Thelma was trying to sell a one-hit wonder. She presented a high-risk investment from a publishing standpoint. First novels that reach only moderate success could usually be followed up by a second novel. She chose not to tell them about his other novel that she had found, The Neon Bible. And then there was the question of how to edit such a manuscript, especially if it needed substantial revision. In addition to all of these challenges, Thelma’s posturing and outright demands likely deterred publishers. In New Orleans her vibrato might be heard, but through letters sent to New York she was easily dismissed, drowned out by the thousands of other represented writers vying for publication.
Regardless, Thelma was not one to take “no” for an answer. One day in the fall of 1976 she read in the Times Picayune that Walker Percy, whose first novel, the Moviegoer, which had won the National Book Award, was teaching a writing seminar at Loyola University. Thelma saw an opportunity. If letters and a manuscript could not entice publishers, then perhaps she could gain a champion with connections in the publishing world. She first reached out to Percy by phone, making calls to his office at Loyola. Percy resisted her with gentlemanly manners, which was more than what some editors offered her. So she decided the days of patient letter writing and polite phone calls were over. With sixteen years of training in the dramatic arts, certainly she could persuade a fellow artist to consider her son’s novel. It was time for some theater.
She told Arthur to prepare himself for a drive to Loyola. He obediently put on his suit and cap. Thelma dressed in her finest attire, dousing herself in talcum powder as a finishing touch. She grabbed the box containing the manuscript, determined this would be the day her son would be recognized. As the elderly brother and sister made their way Uptown, Walker Percy had no idea that he would stand as an audience to Thelma Ducoing Toole.
Percy’s class concluded around five o’clock, after which he would make his drive out of New Orleans, across Lake Pontchartrain, to Covington, where he and his family lived. As he left his office one fall day, an old woman in a fine dress, a pillbox hat, and lace with white gloves holding a white box tied with a string approached him. Clearly this was some aged daisy of an old Southern line, somehow still benefitting from profits made in the family business of cotton or coffee or some other commodity traded at the port of New Orleans. Her driver in the suit and cap maintained a respectful distance. The old lady told Percy of her son, how he had committed suicide but left behind a novel. She wanted him to read it. “But you are biased,” he said. She explained that she was an avid reader, and what she offered him was a great novel. As a Southern gentleman, he could not in good conscience reject the pleas of a mother who endured the grief of her son’s suicide. He was cornered. He took the box from her and offered his condolences.
Driving across the twenty-three-mile bridge to the Northshore, the skyline of New Orleans silently sank into the horizon behind him. The manuscript that Toole had labored over for months in Puerto Rico and sent back and forth to New York City, lay in the passenger seat of Walker Percy’s car. Like most novelists, the idea of peddling a manuscript not his own, in essence becoming a pro bono literary agent, was the farthest thing from his mind. He had a class to teach and his own writing to do. He walked into his home holding the white box in his hand and greeted his wife, Bunt Percy. He told her of the Uptown lady with the driver and the tragic story. But he was hungry and tired and had no energy to read a questionable manuscript unfairly thrust upon him. He said to Bunt, “You read it. Tell me what to do with it.” She agreed to take a look at it later, and the two sat down for a late dinner.
Originally from a small town in Mississippi and now living in a small town in Louisiana, Bunt was intrigued by the ways of New Orleans. That city across the lake that rises out of the water like an island metropolis held a mysterious lore, a place and people of vast eccentricities. She was “eager to hear how they talked” and eager to understand their customs. So the next day she untied the string, removed the loose leaf, unedited manuscript and entered into Toole’s New Orleans, which some would argue is the most accurate portrayal of the Crescent City ever cast into fiction.
A few days later, Walker asked Bunt what she thought of the novel. She understood the fate of the book largely lay in her hands. If she deemed it unworthy, then he could simply return the manuscript and be relieved of the burden of an unpublished novel from a dead writer. “It’s ready for you,” Bunt replied. “I think you should read it.” He knew that she approved of the book. Holding respect for her judgment
, he was obliged to give Toole a chance.
Walker sat down to read the tattered pages. He prided himself on being able to determine the quality of writing after reading only the first paragraph. Immediately, he recognized Toole’s keen talent for observation. In a single paragraph through setting, character, and description, he masterfully captured that ineffable texture of New Orleans. Walker was hooked. In December of 1976 he wrote to Thelma with a positive response, but he also saw some problems in the novel. He suggested the dialogue was too long in places. But it was too early to discuss editorial decisions in detail. Percy was unsure if a publisher would accept it. So he began asking people around town to read it. They came back with mixed reviews. Some people liked it; others did not. He lent a copy to Garic Barranger, who was enthusiastic, but also felt the manuscript needed to be trimmed. Percy read a few chapters to his class at Loyola, and they recognized Toole’s unprecedented and accurate portrayal of New Orleans. But when he asked his own publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, to consider the manuscript, they declined. The Chicago Tribune later reported they “seemed to applaud its quality but turned it down nonetheless because its author being deceased could neither help to promote it or help to follow it up with another book.” At the very least, Percy knew he had a work that elicited response. No one seemed indifferent to the novel.
It just needed some traction, a way for publishers to see the vision of its publication and readers’ reactions. Percy sent the manuscript to Marcus Smith, a professor of English at Loyola and editor of the New Orleans Review. In spring of 1978 the first two chapters of Confederacy were published in the review, followed by several favorable critiques that acknowledged the brilliance of the book and Thelma’s challenges in getting the novel published.
Although the New Orleans Review was far from Simon and Schuster or Random House, Thelma was pleased. In March she requested several copies of the periodical be sent to select faculty members at University of Southwestern Louisiana, including Pat Rickels. And she instructed one copy should be sent to John Wieler, her son’s helpful professor at Columbia and department chair at Hunter College. The New Orleans Review was the first step in garnering public recognition, providing the footholds to capture the interest of a publisher.
Percy was determined to see the manuscript through to full publication, even as he worked on his novel The Second Coming. He recognized the humor and the tragedy in Confederacy. And as someone who suffered with depression throughout his life, Percy must have sympathized with Toole as a writer. In one of his last notes to Thelma, he referred to himself as an “admirer” of her son. But Thelma, for all her admirable tenacity, could be a nuisance. He wanted the novel to succeed, but after two years of promoting it, Percy was eager to put the project to rest. He saw an opportunity in Rhoda Faust, a family friend who owned Maple Street Books, a small bookstore in Uptown.
After being in the bookselling business for years, and at the encouragement of several local writers, Faust aimed to establish a publishing house in New Orleans. One afternoon she called Percy to ask if he had any unpublished writings lying around that she could use to jumpstart her company. He suggested she read the recent edition of the New Orleans Review to see what she thought about the beginning of Confederacy . After acquiring a copy and reading the chapters, Faust found it breathtakingly brilliant. She immediately contacted Thelma to meet with her. Thelma, of course, was thrilled to have someone interested in the novel and more so when Faust told her she wanted to publish the book. Even the daunting pragmatic details of starting a publishing house could not quell the excitement Faust and Thelma felt about the future of Toole’s novel.
Meanwhile, Percy got word that a friend in Covington knew an editor at Louisiana State University Press. At that time it was unusual for a university press to publish novels. However, LSU Press had recently started a fiction program, intended to nab talented writers who had been cast to the margins of the megalithic publishing industry. The manuscript made its way west to Baton Rouge and landed on the desk of editor Martha Hall. Like Bunt Percy, Hall immediately loved Confederacy . She encouraged Les Phillabaum, the director of LSU Press, to publish it. Phillabaum later claimed that he never doubted they would publish the book. However, Bunt recalls that Martha had to repeatedly prod Phillabaum to go through with it. The novel was sure to lose money, but eventually the risk Phillabaum took on Confederacy paid off more than he ever imagined.
Still, Phillabaum took six months to make the decision—a review time common among academic presses. Thelma had grown impatient with New York publishers when they did not respond in a few weeks; six months must have seemed unending. Yet LSU Press was really the end of the road, and a longshot at that. If they declined the novel, Thelma had few options left. Rhoda Faust remained dedicated to publishing it, although ahead of her still lay the long process of establishing a publishing house, which could take more time than Thelma had left to live. Thelma entertained self-publication, but that lacked credibility and required more money than she had. So she urged Percy to contact Phillabaum and ask for his intentions. On April 19, 1979, just over ten years after her son’s death, Phillabaum wrote to Thelma,We have at long last completed our review of “A Confederacy of Dunces,” and our reading has been favorable in the extreme. The novel has been approved for publication.... We are very surprised that the book has not long since been published, but we are indeed pleased that we will be the ones able to do it.
Respectfully, Thelma called Faust to see where she stood with the upstart publishing house. Faust could not offer what LSU offered. So she called Percy to ask his advice. “Don’t make the Pullman wait any longer,” he responded. Not wanting to stand in the way of the novel, Faust encouraged Thelma to accept the contract—a decision Thelma had likely already made.
Perhaps feeling some pangs of guilt and wanting to reward Faust for her dedication, Thelma later gave Faust her son’s collection of books to sell in her store and to collectors. Faust cataloged each one—from The Poetical Works by Geoffrey Chaucer to a first edition of Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer. The books that he studied, enjoyed, and used in the creation of his own novel were sold in the little store on Maple Street in Uptown after the publication of Confederacy. The gift certainly helped Faust’s cash-strapped store. But then, according to Faust, Thelma offered a prize of far greater value than Toole’s old books; she promised her the rights to publish her son’s first novel, The Neon Bible.
Thelma would eventually deny ever making that promise, but at that point, she wanted to keep Faust’s friendship. Both women would benefit from an agreeable relationship. And Thelma would need an advocate for the last unforeseen hurdle between her son’s genius and the world’s recognition of it: the Toole Family.
While Thelma possessed the manuscript and held the copyright to the novel, she did not hold exclusive rights to the work. Both her son and her husband died without a will. And under Louisiana law, based on the Napoleonic Code, her husband’s surviving relatives had claim to a portion of the rights to Confederacy, as lawful heirs to John Dewey Toole’s estate. Thelma was outraged. At first, she maintained a degree of decorum, but for some reason she abandoned diplomacy. The thought of the Tooles profiting from her son’s work incensed her. She claimed the Tooles had a long history of exploiting her for money—something she called “The Old Toole money squeeze.” While Thelma had two lawyers to work on the case, Faust found herself going back and forth between Thelma’s rants and Marion Toole Hosli—Thelma’s niece to whom she taught piano as a young girl—trying to figure out a way for them to agree. The Tooles wanted to read the manuscript to ensure that it did not reflect poorly on the family. But Thelma refused to give them a copy of it. Recognizing a stalemate was forming that would prevent the publication of the book, Faust went against the wishes of Thelma and lent the Tooles her copy. Once ensured it would have no impact on them, the Tooles signed over their rights to Confederacy. They had no way of knowing the value that those rights would carry.
At
that point LSU Press took Confederacy fully under its wing, from resetting the type to the cover design. Walker Percy authored the foreword to the novel. Thelma sent a picture of her beloved son, with the anticipation that it might adorn the dustcover. She selected a photo from his senior year of high school, sixteen years old, casting him in his infinite youth.
It was a project more than twenty years in the making, and it passed through countless hands before reaching publication. And history, as it so often does, has tended to shine a light on the integral male figures in this saga. Aside from Thelma, people like Robert Gottlieb, Walker Percy, and Les Phillabaum are the ones seen shaping the story. And while these figures performed major roles, they tended to overshadow the women that recognized Toole’s talent before their male counterparts did. Jean Ann Jollett was the first to see the novel’s greatness and suggested Gottlieb read it. Bunt Percy gave it her approval before passing it along to her husband. Martha Hall championed the book at LSU, pressing Phillabaum to publish it. And Rhoda Faust eased the concerns of the Toole family, which helped clear the legal pathway for its publication. From his honor’s thesis to his lectures on “The Mother,” Toole had spent many hours pondering the female role in literature and life. It is fitting then that at every major impasse there was a woman who proclaimed faith in his work and encouraged its progression. And yet these women would recede to the backstage, as Thelma prepared for her debut.
With her son’s novel passing through copy editors and running through presses, Thelma frequently invited the Percys to her home in New Orleans. It was upon their first visit to the modest house on Elysian Fields that it became quite clear Thelma was no Uptown daisy with a personal driver. They saw the working-class neighborhood, and Walker recognized the individual he had originally thought to be her driver: her brother, Arthur. Thelma preferred to keep her guests to herself, so Arthur knew to keep his distance. And she also preferred Walker visit without his wife, confessing years later how she had an innocent crush on him—“the guardian spirit” of her son’s novel.
Butterfly in the Typewriter Page 27
