βA moving evocation of the small-town South in the mid-twentieth centuryβ that βbelongs on the shelf with the works of Flannery OβConnor, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Weltyβ (Orlando Sentinel).
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John Kennedy Tooleβwho won a posthumous Pulitzer Prize for his best-selling comic masterpieceΒ A Confederacy of Duncesβwrote The Neon BibleΒ for a literary contest at the age of sixteen. The manuscript languished in a drawer and became the subject of a legal battle among Tooleβs heirs. It was only in 1989, thirty-five years after it was written and twenty years after Tooleβs suicide at thirty-one, that this amazingly accomplished and evocative novel was freed for publication.
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βHeartfelt emotion, communicated in clean direct proseΒ .Β .Β . a remarkable achievement.β βMichiko Kakutani,Β The New York Times
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βJohn Kennedy Tooleβs tender, nostalgic side is as brilliantly effective as his corrosive satire. If you likedΒ To Kill A MockingbirdΒ you will loveΒ The Neon Bible.β βFlorence King
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βShockingly mature.Β .Β .Β . Even at sixteen, Toole knew that the way to write about complex emotions is to express them simply.β βKerry Luft,Β Chicago Tribune