Wordy Birds: You Will Recognize Genius

Wordy BirdsWordy Birds: You Will Recognize Genius

 On the evening of March 26th, 1969, John Kennedy Toole parked his car in a lonely and utterly unremarkable field outside of Biloxi, Mississippi.  He unwound a newly purchased length of garden hose, pinched one end of it in the space between the top of the driver’s window and the doorframe, and inserted the other end into the car’s exhaust pipe.  He got inside, shut the door, and started the engine.  Ninety-Three miles away, a manuscript–written by Toole–sat atop an armoire in New Orleans…waiting to be discovered, published, and praised as one of the best works of American Literature of the Twentieth Century.  It would go on to earn a Pulitzer Prize in fiction.  But in 1969, it collected dust as its author slumped behind the wheel.  

Today Liz talks to Cory McLaughlin, author of Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Short Tragic Life of John Kemmedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confedracy of Dunces

Tune in today at Noon!