In 1954, when he was sixteen years old and in his senior year in high school, John Kennedy Toole entered a literary contest for which he wrote his first novel. It was "The Neon Bible". He didn't win the contest and he made no effort to revise the novel or to get it published.

After his tragic death, by suicide, in 1969, his mother, Thelma Toole, found the manuscript of his second novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces", and began a relentless campaign to get it published. With the help of the novelist Walker Percy, it finally was published, and in 1981 it won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for its author.

Thelma Toole also found the manuscript of "The Neion Bible", but she didn't want to publish it because she resented the claims to her son's literary estate made by her late husband's side of the family under Louisiana's Napoleonic Code. She died in 1984 and "The Neon Bible" was finally published in 1989, 35 years after it was written and twenty years after the death of the author.

"Kenny" Toole had spent some time in rural Mississippi visiting the relatives of his best friend in high school, Cary Laird, and his experiences among the country folk apparently inspired much of "The Neon Bible". Toole was a New Orleans Catholic. of less than devout faith, and he was fascinated by the Calvinistic form of Protestantism he saw in the rural South. In his novel, his narrator, David, is riding on a train through the night as he recalls the story of his boyhood and his coming of age.

Toole was fairly sophisticated for his age, but he writes Dave's story as a convincing account told by a kid of limited education living in a cultural backwater. He's a lonely and strange child, a boy smart enough to know there's more to life than the town preacher or the visiting evangelist have to offer. He's closest to his Aunt Mae, a former dance hall girl who is the worldliest person he knows, but even she seems to be trapped in the mind-numbing banality of their little town.

There is a dramatic turn of events at the end. We learn why Dave is on the train. Ten years later, John Kennedy Toole wrote his masterpiece, "A Confederacy of Dunces". It is a work of genius and a joy to read. In contrast, you can tell that "The Neon Bible" is written by an adolescent, but there aren't many sixteen year old novelists who could craft a story so well. ( )

David es un adolescente que vive en una población miserable del profundo sur. Una Biblia de Neón ilumina el cielo por las noches y durante el día el fanatismo religioso y la malevolencia hacen estragos en la vida de los ciudadanos. El padre de David pierde su trabajo, no puede seguir pagando su contribución a la Iglesia, y esto marca el inicio de una decadencia que les convertirá en parias dentro de la pequeña comunidad. No hay muchas alegrías en la vida de David, excepto las que llegan de la mano de tía Mae, una hermana de su madre que tras una fantasmal carrera como cantante, y ya con sesenta años, escandaliza a los bienpensantes con su pelo teñido de rubio, sus vestidos de colores chillones y sus decrépitos novios. Tras un decepción amorosa y un snagriento y escalofriante episodio, el joven David se apresta a una nueva vida en los horizontes.

I want to give this four stars, but the writing is choppy I think. You can tell he wrote this as a teenager. At times I feel like the editor could have touched it up and other times I feel like he didn't fully write this book. The plot reads like Toole's other book, but the writing doesn't. It's sad he died so young and didn't write anything else. ( )

Aquesta novel·la m'ha colpit com una mala cosa. La va escriure un al·lot de 15 anys, i encara no entenc com algú d'aquesta edat pot escriure amb aquesta qualitat i aquesta força. Jo ja no me'n record del que feia quan jo tenia 15 anys. Per no fer, crec que ni tan sols pensava en el sexe. I aquí arriba un al·lot d'aquesta edat i escriu una novel·la que molts escriptors voldrien per a ells. Em fa molta (i no necessàriament sana) enveja.

Pel que fa a la traducció de Carles Llorach, hauria pogut ser molt bona si no fos perquè tradueix un munt de locucions angleses d'una forma totalment mecànica, paraula per paraula. Una llàstima, perquè per culpa d'això, i de pleonasmes innecessaris aquí i allà, una traducció excel·lent es converteix en poca cosa més que passable. Si hi va haver un corrector d'estil, no va fer bé la feina. ( )

This was okay, a little reminiscent of the kind of "literary" writing that you read in high school English classes though. It's nowhere near the book that A Confederacy of Dunces is, but I think Toole knew that, and if it didn't bother him much it didn't really bother me either since it's such a quick read. The main character is a simple Southern boy who relates his memories of growing up in a tiny, stereotypically churchy Mississippi town during the Depression and World War 2 era. It's basically about how the South is the most intolerable area of the country, which I can agree with. There really isn't much to say about the book since it feels like it's over so quickly, which is a shame since it reads more like a Tennessee Williams or William Faulkner piece than it does like A Confederacy of Dunces. It's sad Toole didn't write more. ( )