Another John Kennedy Toole biography, this one with a cooler cover

Seven years after the publication of Ignatius Rising: The Life of John Kennedy Toole–which I seem to vaguely remember picking up, leafing through, and putting down, underwhelmed–Da Capo Press and author Cory MacLauchlin have brought us the hipper-sounding and -looking Butterfly in the Typewriter: The Tragic Life of John Kennedy Toole and the Remarkable Story of A Confederacy of Dunces. Is it a better book than the first biography? Good question. And you’ll get the chance to ask it on Tuesday, March 27, at 6 p.m., when MacLauchlin appears in support of Butterfly at Octavia Books. Go ahead. Ask him to explain himself. Why is your book better than the first biography? Why did you write it? Who the hell do you think you are, coming in here, from Virginia, of all places, and writing a biography about a New Orleans writer who’s already had a biography written about him, huh? What’s the big idea, smart guy? You gonna tell us? Huh? HUH!?

I enjoy a degree of belligerence at author events.