The story of John Kennedy Toole is a cautionary one. For years he struggled to get his novel ‘A Confederacy Of Dunces’ published. Following his suicide, it took his mother another eleven years to find a publisher. The following year it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

If you’re thinking of giving up, then don’t. As Thomas Edison said: “Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kennedy_Toole

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Confederacy_of_Dunces

Update 2nd March, 2015: Nick Offerman, of ‘Parks and Recreation’ fame, is to take the lead part, playing Ignatius J Reilly in a stage adaptation of ‘A Confederacy Of Dunces’.

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/mar/02/nick-offerman-stage-version-a-confederacy-of-dunces