Neon Bible, John Kennedy Toole - Another Reason to Hate 15 Year Olds

What was I doing when I was 15? I don’t remember. Eating fries. Moving to New York. I started dating someone. Oh and I had a tendency to watch the Thundercats.*

What was John Kennedy Toole doing? Writing Neon Bible. It’s a slice of life covering about a decade of a young man’s life in Mississippi ca. WWII. There’s some bigotry, domestic violence, town prudery and a revival preacher who seemed to have a talent for collecting the greenbacks.

Why does it make me hate 15 year olds? Because Neon Bible is pretty good. I liked the language and the plot (such as there is), and the ending was just excellent. Makes me want to know what happened to the main character, Dave, in later years.

And dag nabbit there’s already a movie based on it with Dennis Leary as the wayward father. From 1995. More than a decade ago. Seriously? What am I the last to hear about any of this stuff? I have to discover it at random while killing time in a Border’s in northern NJ?

Well if you’ve never heard of it (which is pretty unlikely, apparently) you might enjoy it.

* Having skimmed the article, I now know more about the Thundercats than I ever really wanted to. Certainly more than I picked up when I watched it more than a quarter century ago.