Now here's a different kind of teenage goth kid- specifically Southern Goth.
John Kennedy Toole wrote this short (162 svelte pages) Southern Gothic novel as a teenager, age 16. It shows surprising skill and craft for the creation of one so young. It also shows surprising emotional maturity for one so young.
It reads very well. Toole did an excellent job of creating not just a feel of the little Louisiana town, but several strong characters- most notably his Aunt Mae. He doesn't have a strong "plot" in the sense of a discreet continual storyline, but the succession of events over several years adds up to a statement and viewpoint. He brings it all together with a big conclusion. It works.
This book would be really excellent for high school aged readers. Though the protagonist is a boy, the sensitivities and the dominance of female characters would make this more obviously appealing to a teenage girl rather than boys of that age.
The Neon Bible rates pretty good as a book in its own right for adults or teens, but it really rates as a must-read for anyone who's big on Toole's other book, the Pulitzer winning A Confederacy of Dunces. It gives more clues and depth of meaning to his better known book.
For starters, now I'm thinking about Confederacy as a Southern goth novel turned inside out. Like The Neon Bible, it has all the decaying Southern atmosphere, and the tragic characters trapped by their birth. Confederacy is from one angle a comic Southern goth riff.
There are numerous similarities beneath the surfaces of what seem like very different styles and tones. Both novels have boys dependent on weak, deteriorating mother characters.
Most striking, both of Toole's novels end with their protagonists fleeing their homes, desperately hoping for some kind of unknown deliverance or redemption in some random place far away from a home they've never before left. In both cases, the flight resolves the immediate story lines, yet leaves the character lost and hanging out in space. You can really see how the author was staring into the abyss in both novels.
Article comments
1 - HW Saxton Jr.
AL, I don't know when the last time you read this was but it is set in M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I,homes.
Great of you to mention it though.
2 - Al Barger
HW- I may have been just assuming that it was in Louisiana because it's set in a small Southern town, and being from New Orleans was a big thing about the Confederacy.
I just finished reading the book yesterday, but from your note I went back and scanned the whole book. I found nothing specific that said what exact state it was in. It's apparently somewhere south of Tennessee, and not North Carolina.
However, I see nothing to tell me that it was specifically Mississippi (or Louisiana). There's the mention of a town called "Springhill" near the state line from whence came the girlfriend, but there's one of those in MS, LA and CA, and probably others.
Where does it say what state it is set in?
3 - HW Saxton Jr.
It's been some years since I read it but
I seem to recall it was set in the hill country of N.Miss.I'll have to go the library and pick it up as I loaned my copy out years ago never to be seen again. I know that was a triflin' point
and all but if memory serves me right...
I'll get back witcha Al, right or wrong.
Good review,by the way.
4 - Al Barger
Thanks for the compliment. The physical descriptions of the town, and the hills surrounding the town, the dirt and the trees all seem real specific, like he had some definite place in mind. Yet, I did not see the word Mississippi specifically.
Aunt Mae seems to have had stickers from both New Orleans and Biloxi on her suitcase. She speaks of her last job before coming to live with the fam as having been in New Orleans, and her description does makes it sound far away and exotic.
5 - Kyle
I wish he would have hung around longer.Great book, great review.