A Confederacy of Thelma recounts the true story of the mother of John Kennedy Toole, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Confederacy of Dunces. Toole died by suicide before finding a home for his masterpiece, and his mother Thelma made it her life’s mission, through outrageous gamesmanship, to see the book published. She eventually succeeded in getting the manuscript into the hands of writer Walker Percy, who became the novel’s champion. It would be published in 1980, eleven years after her son's death, thereafter becoming a widely celebrated cult classic.