Book Description
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.

From the Author
"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

About the Author
Joel L. Fletcher is the perfect candidate to chronicle the life of John Kennedy Toole. Both Mr. Fletcher and Mr. Toole, who was nicknamed Ken, were young men, interested in books and ideas, when they met in the early 1960s, while the doomed writer struggled to publish A Confederacy of Dunces. Not only did Mr. Fletcher keep a journal and preserve Ken’s letters, but, with his background in English literature and keen artistic sensibility, he is ideally equipped to interpret and express his experiences. Mr. Fletcher also knew Bobby Byrne, the academic rumored to have inspired the novel’s Ignatius Reilly. Most importantly, he was a companion and confidante of the author’s mother, Thelma Ducoing Toole, after the novel was finally released. A self-described "campus brat," Mr. Fletcher grew up in Lafayette, Louisiana, during his father’s long tenure as president of what is now the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Throughout his childhood, Mr. Fletcher enjoyed meeting and learning from the various speakers, scholars, and artists who visited the school. After earning a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University and a year of graduate school at Stanford, he briefly taught college-level English before moving to Europe. "From an early age I had been fascinated by the idea of Europe, and my time there was kind of extended Grand Tour that young gentlemen made in the nineteenth century. The difference as that I had to work while there to pay for it." Mr. Fletcher supported himself by writing travel guidebooks and running a foreign language school, among other tasks, as he continued to study art history. Upon his return to America in 1975, Mr. Fletcher began a career as an art dealer. A specialist in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century fine art, he is now a certified art appraiser who has curated many exhibits and written essays for art magazines and museum catalogues. Joel L. Fletcher lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia, where he is a partner in Fletcher/Copenhaver Fine Art.