by John Kennedy Toole
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Product Description
The first novel by the Pulizer Prize-winning author of A Confederacy Of Dunces. David is a young boy growing up in a small Southern town in the 1940s. From his porch, David can see the whole valley, including the neon Bible that lights up the sky, emblem of the God-fearing folk who snub his family because Poppa can't afford the church dues.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 Genius Too Young, 2008-08-17
That the 16 y.o. John Kennedy Toole could have written a novel with this level of human insight is...frightening. Yes, the story though entertaining is necessarily imperfect. More important, though, is that fact that a boy who was little more than a child had such deep understanding of the human condition. He understands things about us that few people many times his age understand. It's almost as if he knew something...knew too much...and his knowledge killed him.
Ron Braithwaite author of novels--"Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God"--on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Love this book, 2008-03-03
This is a great book! It's not very long so its the kind of book you'll pick up and get really into and finish in a couple days.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
 "Thinking people feel sorry for you is something I guess you should appreciate, but I didn't and never have." , 2007-08-16
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, but for a teenager to possess such acuity when it comes to people and society is remarkable. John Kennedy Toole was such a gifted observer of humanity's foibles despite his young age that "The Neon Bible" contains truths and witticisms that most writers double, and even triple his age could only hope to aspire to. Tragically, there also seems to be a world-weary edge to the novel that no sixteen year-old should have to bear, a burdensome cynicism that undoubtedly contributed to Toole's tragic suicide in 1969 at the age of thirty-two.
Toole is best remembered for his Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece, A Confederacy of Dunces (Evergreen Book) - which his mother succeeded in publishing a few years after her son's suicide. While he had tried (and failed) to get "Confederacy" published during his lifetime, Toole never intended for "The Neon Bible" to see print; he thought that it was too juvenile. But after "Confederacy" became a raging success Toole's family began to see dollar signs and, following a crass legal battle with Toole's mother, who sought to carry out her son's wishes, "The Neon Bible" was cleared for publication in 1989. The legal ordeal is outlined in the novel's introduction by W. Kenneth Holditch, who inherited the rights to "The Neon Bible" after Toole's mother's death, and who eventually lost the fight to respect Toole's wishes.
In his introduction, Holditch hopes that the two novels Toole wrote in his lifetime will "constitute testament to a genius," and they certainly do. If nothing else, reading "The Neon Bible" will make you wish that its truly gifted author had had a long, storied career to explore the full range of his talent. Is "The Neon Bible" perfect? No. It is all promise - the promise of a developing talent that was broken with Toole's unfortunate suicide. Despite its mature insights, it hews too closely to the tried-and-true. Toole had not yet found his confidence as a writer, and so he presented a somewhat clichéd coming-of-age tale that breaks few boundaries and remains steadfastly in the zone of `safe' literature. It is worthy of note, of course, but primarily as the first effort of an author who would later break many of the rules he adheres to so strictly here.
So let's give Toole an A for being so skilled so young, but let's give "The Neon Bible" a C+.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
masterpiece, 2007-02-17
J.K. Toole's work, written when he was 16 years old IS the great American novel. It should be studied by any serious student of English. Reading any of this man's limited work, strikes the heart with sadness at his early death. What volumes he could have produced!!!!!
4 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
Not related to The Arcade Fire, 2007-02-10
If you're an Arcade Fire fan and are buying this book, keep in mind that the band itself has stated that this book has nothing to do with their album Neon Bible.
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