Butterfly in the Typewriter (40 page)

Occasionally she claimed that she despised fame. And surely in her loneliest moments when she longed for her son, fame offered little comfort. But from her interviews and performances it is clear she relished the attention. And she was eager at the prospect of a movie rendition of the novel when Hollywood took an interest in
Confederacy
. Before it won the Pulitzer, LSU sent the galleys to Scott Kramer, a young Hollywood producer who expressed immediate interest. With so much media attention it was bound to be a blockbuster hit. LSU and Thelma sold the film rights to Twentieth Century-Fox. But if Thelma found the publication world bewildering, Hollywood was a veritable Rubrik's cube. Within a few years the rights bounced between various production companies. And with each transaction came some layer of complication. Originally named producer, Kramer remained a consistent advocate for the film. In 1982 he got so far as to begin casting. John Belushi was a possible choice for Ignatius, but he died soon thereafter of a drug overdose. Despite setbacks, Kramer
maintained his dedication to the project, and Thelma had faith in his vision. Alas, attempts to make the film continued long after Thelma died, resulting in a great deal of speculation with eager producers, directors, and actors.

Thelma recognized that her son's ambition was literary in nature, but she desperately wanted to be cast in the film. She confessed she would make a fabulous Irene Reilly. And from her dramatic interpretations of the book, she would have been delightful in that role. In 1982 the film rights were sold to Bumbershoot Productions. Despising the name of the company, which means “umbrella,” and learning of where the company was based, Thelma declared, “Nothing artistic can come from Fort Worth, Texas.” When the film company came to New Orleans in 1983 and neglected to call her, she wrote to the producers with indignation. It is a letter that expresses in print her boldness:

It must have seemed she was losing some grasp on her son's creation. People and companies traded movie rights to the novel, which technically LSU controlled, and she had no part in those discussions. Her sense of superiority so evident in letters like the one above hardly laid the groundwork for collaboration. But she did not appear interested in collaboration. She reveled in adoration. Near the end of her life, she developed an amplified sense of superiority, inflated, no doubt, by the accolades of her son's work.

Few people would deny a mother who had suffered such a great loss a moment in the sun. Still, in the midst of Thelma's fame, as Toole scholar Jane Bethune has noted, “Somehow Ken gets lost.” In a promotional photo of her during this time period, she sits at her baby grand piano; a black curtain with “THELMA” in giant white letters hangs behind her. Like a celebrity at an awards show, she basked in the limelight, sometimes forgetting herself, although she was always sure to end her speech with the obligatory credit to her son. It seemed to some of her longtime friends that she created a persona, or perhaps let some inhibitions of modesty go, speaking boldly and earnestly.

And yet, despite her fame and the gains in income from royalty checks, she did not change her lifestyle in any major way. She continued to live with her brother on Elysian Fields in the small house that had no air-conditioning. She still wore her white gloves and a pillbox hat whenever she left home. In her early eighties, she now preferred the company of others to material wealth. And with time and money, she was generous. She sympathetically replied to letters from writers blighted by New York publishers and mothers inspired by her resilience. One writer sent her copies of the threatening letters that he wrote to Gottlieb. He took up a crusade against him with an aim to vindicate Toole. Some of her correspondents turned bizarre. Through a series of letters to Thelma one man became convinced that Toole's writings gave some insight into the fate of the world. He also came to the conclusion that he could perform miracles and sent his ninety-five-page explanation of this claim to both Thelma and the Pope. But most admirers simply wanted to reach out to her. They wanted to know more about her son. And she often extended an open invitation to her home.

When people stopped by to see her, she regularly gave candies and cups; rarely did anyone go away empty handed. When the novel was
published, she sent flowers, gifts from D. H. Holmes, and signed first editions. On some occasions, especially before the royalty checks started coming in, she would gift relics of her son, items like fingernail clippers and his bed sheets. She attempted to give Walker Percy and Rhoda Faust a set of silverware. One afternoon when she saw Angela Gregory, the artist who befriended her son as they walked to and from Dominican in the last years of his life, Thelma gave her a porcelain plate, which is now held in the New Orleans Historical Collection. And in the summer of 1978, before LSU had made an offer, she sent one of the first typescripts of
Confederacy
with handwritten corrections to her son's best friend, Cary Laird.

Most of her gifts were tokens of appreciation to those who helped her. But some of them came with unstated expectations of reciprocal thanks and continued loyalty. To get around town, she depended on a coterie of friends, some old acquaintances of her son and others who had been involved in the publication of the novel. She enjoyed the company and usually treated them with kindness. And while she vehemently denied the assertion that she had “delusions of grandeur,” she developed a kind of fantasy quality to her life. One afternoon she called up Walker Percy and asked him to come to her home without his wife as she intended to knight him. Likely the knighting ceremony of her chosen ones to attend her as the Queen Mother for the Mardi Gras krewe, the request may have made sense in New Orleans. Across Lake Pontchartrain in Covington, it struck Percy and his wife as odd and sure to be an uncomfortable event. While many people indulged the fantasies of an aged woman near the end of her life, she was quick to lash out at those closest to her if she felt they did not give her the respect she was due. At a promotional event at the Maple Street Bookstore, she saw Percy talking to someone in the back of the room as she sang a song in his honor. She later reprimanded him for his rude conduct, saying, “You are no gentleman, sir!” And when Joel Fletcher told her he was unable to escort her to an engagement, she seemed to forget the times he travelled with her to New York, Canada, and to events throughout New Orleans. She banished him from her court. Of course, her rash behavior concealed a desperate desire to have people around her. When one of her regular visitors, a professor at University of New Orleans and a person whose company she enjoyed very much, simply stopped calling, she was baffled and hurt.

But as long as the popularity of
Confederacy
remained strong, she maintained her audience. And she knew that the success of the novel ensured publication of her son's first novel
The Neon Bible
. She intended to orchestrate the release of the second novel once the dust settled from
Confederacy
. In April of 1981, days after she received word about the Pulitzer, she made some movements toward its publication. Her lawyers sought confirmation that no one currently owned rights to the book. The manuscript had no claims on it in the Library of Congress, but she knew from her experience with
Confederacy
that the application of Louisiana law would grant the surviving Tooles fifty percent of the royalties. And while she often appeared unconcerned over money, the thought of the Tooles profiting from the work of her genius son was inconceivable to her. Certainly, under the laws of most other states, property would not be divided so strangely, but Louisiana was always distinct from the rest of country, for better or worse.

So as Thelma basked in the glow of
Confederacy
, she maneuvered to circumvent Louisiana law. And when she couldn't do that, she sought to change the law. In February of 1983 Thelma wrote to the governor of Louisiana, David Treen, referring to herself as “the writer Thelma Toole.” At the time she was working on a prequel to
Confederacy
focused on the parochial schooling of Irene Reilly. She informed the governor of the preceding arrangements in the case of
Confederacy
and that she had invited the four surviving Toole heirs to her home in order to “sign an honorable waiver” and give up rights to
The Neon Bible
. But “no one attended.” She goes on to state,

On March 4, 1983, the executive counsel to the governor, Cyrus Greco, replied to Thelma, advising her to contact Senator Sydney Nelson who was at “the forefront of legislation revising the laws on heirship.” Counselor Greco goes on to admit he read
Confederacy
and commended Thelma for getting it published “since it has brought pleasure to many, many persons.”

Thelma also gained the advocacy of U.S. representative Lindy Boggs to press the governor to allow Thelma to address the Louisiana House of Representatives. But here the progress of her activism hit a political brick wall. The summer of 1983 passed without any word from governing powers. It seemed evident that the matter would not be taken up.

In October the Tooles signed a letter agreeing that
The Neon Bible
should be published but requested that Thelma offer details as to the finances of the endeavor. They recognized they had unknowingly signed away tens of thousands of dollars when they waived their rights to
Confederacy
. And with her repeated tirades against them, they were not obliged to be so acquiescent with this book. They had no intention of stopping its publication, but they wanted what was considered their share under Louisiana law. Thelma was horrified by their audacity. In a scathing letter to the Tooles that she instructed her lawyer to read to them, she placed a curse on the entire Toole family. “I have suffered alone,” she declares, “therefore I should gain alone.” Defying her tempestuous rants, they would not hand over the rights. Each side had a claim of fifty percent, but with Thelma having registered the copyrights of the book, she was confident, “No Toole can ever desecrate it by making a claim.”

Time passed, and it seemed the issue had been dropped.
The Neon Bible
would never see publication. But in 1984, Rhoda Faust reclaimed her position, asserting that Thelma had years earlier promised her rights to publish
The Neon Bible
. In July, Thelma's estate lawyer, John Hantel, sent a letter informing Faust's lawyer that Thelma was not inclined to publish the novel, and that she had never entered into any contract, neither verbal nor written, with Faust. A battle was once again brewing over the book, but this time, Thelma was too weak to weather the fight.

She suffered health problems before the publication of
Confederacy
. The remarkable success likely added years to her life. But fame could not rid her body of the tumor growing on her kidney. She
refused dialysis. And in late August of 1984, Thelma Toole died in her home on Elysian Fields.

Her son had only three people present at his services, but well over fifty attendants signed the guest book for Thelma's funeral. Even the people she had marginalized from her court returned to pay their respects. Unlike the day-after death notices of her son and her husband, Thelma's memorial services were announced in the
Times Picayune.
After mistakenly stating the funeral “private,” the paper printed a correction. It was to be a “public ceremony.” On a hot summer day, her body was placed in the Ducoing tomb, where her son had been buried years earlier. Her husband had been laid to rest several miles away in St. Vincent de Paul Cemetery. As in life, John Dewey Toole remained alienated in death, while mother and son were reunited, both their names engraved on the same stone with the surname Ducoing proudly displayed above the gray marble sepulcher.

While Thelma finally rested in peace, the affairs of her estate remained in conflict. In her will she had signed over the rights to
The Neon Bible
to Kenneth Holditch, a friend and professor at University of New Orleans who was one of the students in Walker Percy's class in 1976 and one of the first New Orleanians to praise
Confederacy
. She made him promise that he would block publication of
The Neon Bible
if the Tooles maintained their position as benefactors. What should have been a relatively easy estate to settle was now complicated by a legal battle for the unpublished novel that Toole had deemed a failure in 1954.