Elevator People

• Adams
• Rabelais
• Toole
• Islam

The following are short biographies of four people with whom I would like to be stuck in an elevator for about an hour...

John Kennedy Toole

"I am at this moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip."

John Kennedy Toole, A Confederacy of Dunces

John Kennedy Toole was the New Orleans born author of the novels "A Confederacy of Dunces" and "the Neon Bible." However, all of his literary notieriety, including a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, came posthumously, after his suicide in 1969. Seven years after his death, Toole's mother took the manuscript for "Dunces" to Walker Percy, author and faculty member at Loyola University. Percy loved the story and subsequently had it published in 1980. It went on to sell more than 1.5 million copies worldwide.

Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens

"Pick up the pieces you see before you
Don't let your weaknesses destroy you
You know wherever you go the world will follow
So let your reasons be true to you."

Cat Stevens, 100 I Dream

Yusuf Islam, previously known as Cat Stevens, is "a singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, educator, philanthropist, and prominent convert to Islam." Stevens lyrics are known for being introspective, promoting free spiritedness, and advocating peace. He provided the complete soundtrack to Hal Ashby's 1971 film Harold and Maude.

All information on this site was obtained from Wikipedia.org.