A Confederacy of Dunces

A Confederacy of Dunces is a fictional and satirical novel by American novelist John Kennedy Toole which reached publication in 1980. Dunces details the adventures of a scabrous, slothful, and hippopotamically fat medievalist named Ignatius J. Reilly, who lives in New Orleans with his overweening mother, Irene. Over the years, many who've read the book have assumed that Reilly is Toole's comically exaggerated alter ego. Ignatius Reilly, an extremely large, slothful, and cranky fellow wearing a hat with flas over his ears, is waiting outside the D.H. Holmes department store for his mother. A policeman, Officer Angelo Mancuso, threatens to arrest him as a suspicious character. A scene ensures in which Mrs. Reilly arrives, the crowd turns on Mancuso, and Claude Robichaux, an old man, is arrested. Mancuso's sergeant tells him he is an idiot and orders him to dress up in ridiculous costumes and wander around the city until he catches an actual perpetrator.