A call to anyone at Fort Buchanan 1961-1963

Piggybacking on the previous post, it occurs to me that I might have readers in Puerto Rico now, some of whom may be able to help shape this book. Since I have been writing about Toole in Puerto Rico I have spoken with many of the instructors that served in Company A. But it has always bothered me that I have yet to speak to any of the trainees (or Puerto Rican recruits). My attempts to contact anyone from the Puerto Rican side of this story have not been successful. I would love to speak with any of the Puerto Rican trainees who came through Company A, B or C in the early 60s. So, dear readers, if anyone can help me make this connection, you would have my eternal gratitude. Gracias!

Review in Puerto Rico

I would have never expected to have gained my first bit of media recognition as a Toole biographer in Puerto Rico, but it seems apropos considering I have been continuously thinking about the Puerto Rico, and more specifically Fort Buchanan, of 1962 and 1963 over the past few months.

Sofia Cardona, a professor at University of Puerto Rico, contacted me a few weeks ago to ask some questions about Toole. We exchanged a few emails and then she posted a link to her very interesting review of Confederacy. She approaches the novel from a Puerto Rican perspective, which I think is an approach that deserves more exploration.

Her review was published in Claridad, a primary source for news and arts in Puerto Rico. View it here: "Sobre el libro de aquel gringo"

For those of you who do not speak Spanish, Google translator will give you a rough translation--but enough to get an idea of the article.

Chapter Completed and A Morning Remembered

I just finished the chapter on 1963 (chapter 10), which was a turning point in Toole's life. In January of 1963 he returned to Fort Buchanan, PR from a holiday trip to New Orleans and decided to begin writing Confederacy.

In May of 1963, his writing was going so well he decided to move back to New Orleans. In the chapter I explore his experience writing the book, some of the literary influences he gathered in Puerto Rico, and his eventual decision to move back home. It is a great deal of content to cover, but all of it very important to understanding Toole. It was this year in his life that gave us Confederacy, although his decision to return home was an ill-fated one.

As I struggled through this chapter, I recieved some sad news from Lafayette, LA. One of Toole's closest friends, a woman he loved dearly, has become quite ill.

I spent a few hours with her at her house in April. She served me coffee and cookies and we talked about Toole, art, teaching, politics and humanity. She made me promise to teach the stories of her friend Ernest J. Gaines in my next Southern Literature Course. I agreed.

I showed her photos of Toole, many of which she had never seen. She looked at his Army pictures as if he were a stranger; she never saw him in a uniform. Then I showed her my favorite picture, Toole sitting at a table with a genuine smile that looks like he could erupt into laughter at any moment. She pointed to it and said, "Yes, that's the Ken I remember. He looked just like that."

Then she showed me her paintings and a beautiful pink rose she had picked; it was to be the subject of her next watercolor.

It was a lovely morning in the heart of Cajun country.

New Title

The book has a new title....

Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Brilliant and Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole

This title alludes to the last stanza from an unpublished poem by Toole titled "The Arbiter." With permission, I will include this final stanza on one of the first pages of the book:

The book sold well, we understand,
Although the cover itself would command
A buyer’s attention: A large abstract bee
Crushing a butterfly with a typewriter key.

"The Arbiter"
(unpublished)
John Kennedy Toole

The original manuscript of the poem is in the Toole Papers in the .Special Collections at Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University

Question Posed

Dear Readers,

I am happy to report that I now have a literary agent, which brings this biography one step closer to your bookshelf. As I prepare my book proposal for potential publishers I have been thinking about the population of readers that scholars tend to neglect. They are the casual readers, those strolling through a Barnes and Noble on a Sunday afternoon with an overpriced coffee in hand, or those at the airport bookshop looking to read something on their flight. I have asked myself, why would these readers pick up this biography? What about this story might appeal to them?

And so I hand over this question to anyone willing to offer their thoughts. If you are familiar with Toole, what do you want out of this biography? And if you are not familiar with Toole, what do you look for in a biography? What would make you stop in the bookstore or the airport, pick up this book, and buy it.

I will consider all your comments. And as I reference this blog in the proposal, your comments may very well be seen by a publisher.

Meaningful Praise and A Lesson Learned

I just received feedback on one of my chapters from Toole’s close friend Dave Kubach. Toole met Kubach in Puerto Rico—and it was on Kubach’s typewriter that Toole began composing A Confederacy of Dunces. I sent him the chapter on Toole’s first year in Puerto Rico. Needless to say, Kubach’s opinion of my work was very important to me. Only he could verify the accuracy of my portrayal.

I was pleased when he wrote, “I'm happy you gave ample evidence of [Toole’s] fundamental decency of character….There is little in your chapter I would quarrel with.” And I was overjoyed when he finished his letter with:

“Your use of his letters home to chart his development as a comic writer is a really useful contribution to understanding how Confederacy of Dunces got written, a valuable move away from the general fascination with the details of biography. Quoting substantially from his letters home also gives us a useful sense of the texture of John's life in Puerto Rico.”

But Kubach also doubted one section of my chapter, with which I admittedly struggled. He wrote, “I'm not sure John was so much the detached observer of Company A you make him out to be.” In the chapter on 1961 I characterize Toole as “operating on the social margins of Company A, waiting for an opportune moment at any party to inject his trademark wit.” In some ways this description was a compromise between the conflicting character assessments several other members of Company A offered of Toole. But in the end I think it was something more than a mere compromise.

Allow me to digress. I was at a party yesterday with my wife’s family and I found myself listening to several conversations. Periodically I would interject a witty comment, never seeking center stage. I was acting my usual self during a social gathering. But as I became more self-aware of my behavior within the context of the party, the words that I wrote about Toole seemed applicable to me. I too was “waiting for an opportune moment to inject my wit.”

And so it occurred to me that when I wrote about “Toole within the social context of Company A,” I may have let my own personality shape my description. If so, it was not intentional, nor was I cognizant of my actions. But it makes me wonder, does the biographer, in the act of attempting to write objectively about his subject, fight against writing his autobiography? Or, in the subject he chooses, does he in some way actually write his autobiography without knowing it? Scholars might be abhorred at such a proposal. But do we not find traces of the biographer in every biography?

I suppose the best biographies are those that keep this violation to an untraceable minimum. But I also venture to guess that any biographer would admit, perhaps in the rarest of moments, his subject eventually becomes interwoven with his own life, and thereby (either consciously or subconsciously) becomes part of his autobiographical narrative. And thus, such an exchange becomes tempting grounds for subjective assessment. It is a fine line to walk, especially with a subject who is not alive to right the wrongs of a biographer.

For me, this lesson was an important one in the subtleties of the potential pitfalls in any biography. Thank you Mr. Kubach.

A Conversation with JKT's Cousin

The other day I interviewed JKT’s cousin (on his father’s side). Never sustaining a consistent familial relationship with the Toole side of the family, JKT reconnected with his cousin at several points in his life. The information he shared with me offered intriguing insight into the final moments of Toole’s life, details that contradict some commonly held beliefs about his last days. I will not go into the details of the conversation here. After all, I must keep something for publication.

However, I will say that his cousin, unlike most people I have interviewed for this book, did not focus on Toole’s wit or humor. As a biographer, I tend to look for consistency in recollections. Expectedly, I have found Toole’s wit and humor, as evident in his novel, the qualities of his personality that his friends find most memorable. But my conversation with Toole’s cousin highlighted a different aspect of Toole. And expectedly so. Their exchange was based on brief, but important interludes in Toole’s life. It seems Toole contacted his cousin when he sought a confidant who could relate to the challenges of life in the Toole household.

My conversation with JKT's cousin reminds me of the complexity of that elusive thing we call personality. Each one of us refines and displays behavioral characteristics, which eventually become iconic of our person. Even with our closest friends and family, social dynamic may determine our behavior. But at times, we may seek counsel with friends or family members on the margins of our circle--the friend of a friend, or a distant cousin. Do we gravitate to such individuals because we can momentarily discard the mask in which we live and find a more authentic discourse? And after doing so, do we maintain that authenticity? Or having refreshed ourselves, do we once again don the mask, because it is where we are most comfortable?

In the face of such questions, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman echo in my ear:

“Why drag about this corpse of your memory lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place?” Emerson asks.

"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)" Whitman proclaims.

And so, I recognize that every contradiction needn't be resolved, for the complexity and the idiosyncrasies of the individual, as Emerson and Whitman argue, is a condition to celebrate.