During dinner, Toole likely maintained his Southern charm and social graces in front of the parents of his friend. Even after their time in the army, Dave Farr kept in contact with Toole, eagerly wishing to keep his friendship. But Toole’s comments speak to the razor-sharp cruelty of which he was capable. The letter also illustrates the degree to which he invested himself into his characters and the toll it took on him. Years later, looking back on this time, he explained, “In the unreality of my Puerto Rican experience, this book became more real to me than what was happening around me; I was beginning to talk and act like Ignatius.” At least in letters, this Ignatian voice was reserved for his mother. In letters to friends like Fletcher, his witty remarks are far less sharp and not nearly as mean.
However regretful his comments, his process worked. On May 15 he documents his progression and begins to take stock in his accomplishment, recognizing both its personal and professional value.
The “creative writing” to which I turned about three months ago in an attempt to seek some perspective upon the situation has turned out to have been more than simple psychic therapy. I am now well over one hundred pages and feel that the story shows no signs of bogging or faltering . . . . My most immediate hope is that I will at least be able to complete the first draft before I am released from the Army; at the rate of my current progress, this may be possible. You both know that my greatest desire is to be a writer and since I finally feel that I am doing something that is more than barely readable, I am very concerned about a civilian situation which will make completion and revision of this particular work possible. That is why I am planning on New Orleans for a while at least . . . If this thing can be worked upon, I am almost certain that a publisher would accept it and so do one or two others to whom I have shown excerpts.
Toole writes with confidence but tempers his arrogance when he handwrites into the typed letter, “I must not set my hopes too high.” Throughout his letters during this period, he claims certainty of the novel’s success and then restrains his certitude with expressions of doubt. Toole understood he was investing in a project that would make him vulnerable to rejection. For a person whose natural talents propelled him to extraordinary heights, rejection would strike a devastating blow. The failure of The Neon Bible to win the writing contest may have cast a long shadow over his successive attempts to write fiction. Accordingly, he may have taken measures to protect himself against the feelings of failure.
But in Puerto Rico, his inner critic did not stifle his motivation. Day by day, he progressed toward another completed chapter, another step closer to his discharge. It was not until the tenor of Fort Buchanan changed that his motivation lagged. As surprise inspections became more common and the trainees far more disruptive, Toole found it difficult to write. At the end of May, he finished a training cycle that left him exhausted. His one place of refuge was his private room:Heat, wild trainees, and inspections combine to make conditions more unpleasant than they have ever been here; but I am still in my white room with my fan and bookcase, having survived somehow through it all. Writing comes only with great difficulty these days.
While Toole’s writing had provided him relief, it also caused him to retreat from the social atmosphere of Fort Buchanan. He became further detached from everything and everybody. He donned dark sunglasses when off duty and seemed to avoid the carousing at the officers’ club or the bars in San Juan. In pictures taken during a large picnic at Fort Buchanan, he appears as a blurred, sunglassed figure, moving unnoticed through crowds of people, like Burma Jones in Confederacy. Toole describes himself as a tragically humorous character in a picture he sent to his parents: Enclosed is a photograph of Sgt. Toole emerging from the English Instructors’ barracks; the window on the right is my room; the people in the foreground are two duds. The sunglasses and pith helmet add a tropical note to Sgt. Toole’s appearance . . . as he slouches off to new triumphs.
By June he fell into a slump similar to the previous summer; however, his upcoming discharge offered him encouragement. And he still took pride in the recognition the army continued to offer him: he was promoted to Specialist Fifth Class. The army placed laurels upon his brow every few months. But more importantly, the promotion may have sustained him during a particularly bad cycle of trainees. With a decrease in instructors, Toole returned to teaching, while maintaining administrative duties. His writing suffered. And the trainees were more colorful but also more brazen compared to the trainees a year prior. He writes to his parents,If only you knew how ludicrous this “Training Center” is, a place where almost all the trainees this cycle are wearing stocking caps. It is a general practice for Puerto Rican men to use pancake make-up on their faces and to use neutral polish on their fingernails, and it is not unusual to see a trainee opening a compact during a break in the English classes or working on his nails.
The image offers humor, but his jest clearly springs from frustration. He had endured disrespect and insubordination, uncharacteristic of army discipline and unusual for Toole who had enjoyed popularity as an instructor. On one occasion during the cycle, “a ball of paper flew through the air” and hit him on the head. Toole insists on the hilarity of the situation but then, once again, generalizes the incident as representative of Puerto Rico. “What a frightening civilization exists on this island: ignorant, cruel, malicious, infantile, self-centered, undependable, and very proud withal.”
As he commanded less respect from the trainees, his relationship with the instructors of Company A soured as well. Toole had earned their trust as a superior who protected them from the authoritative whims of their commanders. They saw him as a fair and honest sergeant. But on one occasion his actions resulted in the downfall of his reputation. As Kubach recalls, one evening he and Toole walked into the Company A office and found Private First Class Bob Morter slumped over a desk with a large, empty bottle of pain killers next to him. All signs indicated Morter had tried to commit suicide.
Most of the instructors recognized Morter as a troubled individual. Some instructors in Company A recalled Morter drinking himself into oblivion all too often. And his mannerisms signaled to them that he was homosexual, a substantial personal challenge in both the military and civilian society of the early 1960s. While the instructors of Company A maintained a relaxed attitude toward Morter’s behaviors, the group of young men periodically chided him, as he seemed marginal from the group, never quite fitting in. Whatever haunted Morter, his struggle culminated one evening as he sat alone in the Company A office.
As head of the company, Toole should have called an ambulance upon seeing Morter’s limp body. While Toole was not particularly fond of Morter, he also knew that a suicide attempt would tarnish Morter in the eyes of the military and increase his suffering. He delayed calling the authorities, hoping Morter might revive on his own. After some time passed and Morter remained unresponsive, Toole called the ambulance. Morter survived, but the instructors questioned Toole’s reason for delay.
Kubach maintains that Toole was trying to protect Morter from further embarrassment. But the rest of Company A found Toole’s hesitation disturbing; they interpreted it as a chilling indifference to human life. According to Tony Moore, one instructor asked, “Why would Morter do something like this?” Toole dismissively and unsympathetically responded, “Why does Morter do anything?” Moore recalls a group of instructors in Company A convening one evening to decide if they should report Toole’s delayed response. For many of the men, Toole had violated their trust and failed to fulfill his duty as a leader. But they also remembered that he had made their lives in Puerto Rico more pleasant than it might have been without his leadership; he often protected them from the tirades of their superiors. Moore suggests that their sense of appreciation prevented the group of instructors from pursuing official action, but they had lost respect for Toole. According to one account, to settle the score, several guys roughed up Toole one night outside his private room. But it resolved nothing. As Kubach recalls, “Everythi
ng really went downhill for him after that.”
The incident prompted Toole to reflect over some hard-learned lessons. He writes a cryptic letter to his parents on June 30. Even his mother likely had difficulty making sense of what provoked such introspection.
While I have had unusual success in the Army, I have also had unusual problems (This is a statement, not a complaint. I believe that I have matured sufficiently to avoid complaining—previously one of my more apparent characteristics.). Handling a contingent of English instructors trapped here together for almost two years and half-maddened by continual exposure to the trainees has not been easy. Some aspects of this have almost been tragic. I can sincerely say that nothing could phase [sic] me any more . . . and that nothing is all-inclusive.”
As a leader, he had faltered. Once again, his daydreams of home offered consolation:If I am fortunate I will be able to forget many things that have happened in the last few months; however, this place is so far removed from reality that the happenings here tend to fade from your mind when you get away for only a day . . . I would like to sit in the living room and talk for hours and hours and hours . . . over black coffee, lemonade, bourbon or whatever you are willing to serve me.
In the summer heat, deviant trainees and military politics burdened him, but fortunately in late June his writing resurged. It was the glimmer of his future after the army. He reported this development to his parents and detailed his precise purpose in returning home: On the writing, I have experienced a “renaissance” and have been regularly adding to the manuscript page by page. My one hope in civilian life (in the immediate months following discharge) is that I will have conditions favorable to trying to complete this thing and to polish it. That is why I am planning to stay in New Orleans, for I feel that I should be able to do some work there while I am unburdened by having to shift for myself so far as housing and food are concerned. I must make one try at getting something published and I feel that this is the time . . . . One point should be made clear: I do not intend to go to Law School or to any other school at the present time. About the thing I am writing I have one conviction: it is entertaining and publishable, and I have more than a degree of faith in it.
He finally proclaims unrestrained belief in his talents and his creation. While returning to Columbia University was the more conventional road toward a life in academia, he chose an uncertain path, leading to either his dreams of authorship or nightmares of rejection. But in several letters, he returns to his reasons for moving back to New Orleans, as if he needed to repeatedly justify his decision, perhaps even to himself. Despite his attempts to idealize his visions of home, requesting gold-framed pictures of his mother and imagining quaint disagreements with neighbors, moving back to New Orleans came with substantial peril. After years of independence, two of which he had excelled in the military, he would once again live under his parents’ roof, and once again he would answer to his mother. From his letters, he appears purely motivated by his literary aspirations, but his apparent need to validate his decision calls this premise into question.
The Tooles still struggled financially. Ever since he garnished his army paycheck for their benefit, he felt obligated to help them. If he negotiated between his sense of filial duty and his own desires, the publication of his novel offered him an exit plan and the possibility of financial security. His decision to move back home required both faith in his talents and faith in his plan to free himself from a life bound to his parents.
Thelma Toole in the year of her marriage, 1927. Her son requested she send this photo in a gold frame to him while stationed in Puerto Rico, where he wrote A Confederacy of Dunces. (Personal Collection of Joel Fletcher)
John Toole circa 1919. He enlisted in the Marines at the end of World War I, although he never left the country. (LaRC, Tulane University)
“The Beauteous Babe,” as Toole’s mother often referred to him. From the moment he was born, she noted how he was bright-eyed and observant. (LaRC, Tulane University)
From an early age, Toole took an interest in automobiles. His father was a car salesman, and his mother proudly claimed “Kenny Boy” could name the makes and models of cars at the age of two. When he was five, his father let him drive around the block with a friend, unattended. His mother was outraged. (LaRC, Tulane University)
A rare picture of father and son. John Toole lifts his “Kenny Boy” to the sky. (LaRC, Tulane University)
One of the posed shots taken during the time Toole performed with youth theater troupes. (LaRC, Tulane University)
The director at work. In addition to piano and elocution lessons, Thelma put together pageants and variety shows at local schools. In the late 1940s, she started a youth theater troupe that featured her son. Occasionally, she wrote parts specifically for him to perform. (LaRC, Tulane University)
In McComb, Mississippi, Toole works the gears of a tractor while his high school friend Cary Laird smiles for the camera. Toole and Laird were the best of friends in high school. At the age of sixteen, he visited Laird’s extended family in Mississippi. Toole was so inspired by this trip that he wrote his first novel, The Neon Bible, shortly after his return to New Orleans. (Personal collection of Myrna Swyers)
In 1955, Toole hit the road with his friend Stephen Andry. In a Bel-Air convertible, they drove from New York City to New Orleans before the start of the fall semester at Tulane. (LaRC, Tulane University)
The Hullabaloo, October 5, 1956. Toole was well aware of the politics of his age but usually searched for the absurdities in any situation. Here he depicts the tension between equally oblivious sides of academia and supporters of communism. (LaRC, Tulane University)
The Hullabaloo, November 9, 1956. This was part of a series of comics by Toole, inspired by the 1956 film Bus Stop, starring Marilyn Monroe. Toole was infatuated with Monroe and was devastated by her death in 1962. (LaRC, Tulane University)
A satire of the staff of Carnival, a student-run literary magazine at Tulane. In 1956, Toole contributed art and served as nonfiction editor. In this full-page comic, Toole depicts himself in the back, wearing sunglasses and holding a beer bottle. (LaRC, Tulane University)
The Hullabaloo, February 22, 1957. Toole was an avid moviegoer. He shows humorous irreverence in this comic inspired by the 1956 epic film The Ten Commandments. (LaRC, Tulane University)
In the summer of 1958 before leaving for graduate school, Toole visited the beaches on the Gulf of Mexico just outside New Orleans. Throughout his life, he retreated to the Gulf Coast. In 1969 he returned to one of his favorite spots off the coast and committed suicide. (LaRC, Tulane University)
The view from Toole’s dorm room on the top floor of Furnald Hall at Columbia University. Overlooking Broadway, the dorms for Barnard College are under construction and the bell tower of Riverside Church rises in the distance. (LaRC, Tulane University)
From Manhattan high-rises to Louisiana low-rises, Toole left New York and went to work at Southwestern Louisiana Institute in the capital of Cajun country—Lafayette, Louisiana. English classes were taught in “Little Abbeville,” a group of old, termite-ridden buildings at the very back of the college. They were originally built as temporary structures by the U.S. Army to train troops during World War II. (University Archives, University of Louisiana at Lafayette)
The 1959–1960 English Department at Southwestern Louisiana Institute. Toole once playfully commented this was a “faculty composed of fiends and madmen.” Department chair, Mary Dichmann, is in the far left of the front row. Nick Polites is in the front row to the far right. Moving to the left of Polites is Patricia Rickels, Muriel Price, Milton Rickels, and J. C. Broussard. Toole is in the top row to the far right. And Bobby Byrne, the most likely model for Ignatius Reilly, is the mustached man in the center of the top row. (L’Acadien, Southwestern Louisiana Institute, 1960)
In New York in February of 1961, Toole enjoys the mounds of snow in Central Park. He once observed that New Yorkers develop a “snowbound mentality” in the w
inter months. (LaRC, Tulane University)
Toole taught English to draftees in Puerto Rico. He was praised in the local newspaper for his engaging classes and remarkable success as a teacher. Toole was fluent in Spanish, although speaking Spanish was forbidden in the classrooms. (LaRC, Tulane University)
After being promoted to leader of Company A, Toole was given a private room. Here, one thousand miles away from New Orleans, he wrote A Confederacy of Dunces. (LaRC, Tulane University)
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