September 8 - 12, 338 pages
Just quickly, that cover was a pleasure to draw. I'm glad I decided to pay a bit extra for this edition.
And now to what's inside the awesome cover. This book is very funny. Ignatius, the central character, is just in a class of his own. You can't help but root for him, despite being a selfish, deluded, yet very intelligent, obese slob who still lives with his poor mother. In fact, all of Toole's characters are great. In a way this novel is quite Dickens-esque: the many overlapping characters and sub-plots are as complex as the are hilarious, and culminate wonderfully at the end. This is a really good read. I learned so many new words!
Toole actually didn't live to see this book published. He committed suicide after he could not find a publisher, and his mother pushed to get it published after he died. The foreword in this book is by the man who accepted it. Good thing he did; it's a great book and it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1981.
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