Jeff's Reviews > A Confederacy of Dunces

I think the back story of A Confederacy of Dunces leads many a critic to overhype the book. I also suspect there might be more than a bit of autobiography in the novel, especially in regard to the character of Ignatius Riley's mother.

There's a very telling exchange in the final chapter, in which Myrna Minkoff finally makes her appearance to rescue Ignatius from his mother:

He tried to drag her out the front door, but she said, “Don’t you want to pack anything?”

“Oh, of course. There are all of my notes and jottings. We must never let them fall into the hands of my mother. She may make a fortune from them. It would be too ironic.”

That's, of course, exactly what Toole's own mother did with his work.