Overthunk

If you just want to experience New Orleans without all the sweating and beignets and staggering and hurricanes, read this: A Confederacy of Dunces There's a statue of Ignatius Reilly in the French Quarter somewhere, and I'm kicking myself that I didn't see it. A movie might be made at some point, but, I guarantee you, it will be a gossamer shadow of this book's greatness. Read it. Even if only for the pale purpose of saying you've read a Pulitzer prizewinning fiction. Suffocate yourself laughing, slobber everywhere crying. Just read it. Trust me.

Those who read this screed with any regularity are already acquainted with my love of John Updike, who, besides just possessing my esteemed enamorment, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction not once but twice. The day before yesterday I just happened to drop by the Half-Price Books in my town, where I, on a whim, thought some new Updike might just be the thing. So I picked this up. Note its price: $4.98. Well, the day went on, I continued shopping, visited with friends, and was waiting for my Independence Day Freedom Potato Salad spuds to finish boiling when I thought I might read a story or three while I was waiting. After all, there were 40 of them. Oh, look at that, an inscription in a used book. Let's see whose Great Aunt Margot gave this to them on which holiday... Well, I'll declare. That there says, "for Mark a rare volume John Updike" Being me, my first thought at any awesome event such as this is, "Nuh UH ." So of course I went and checked here ...