A Confederacy of Dunces

I've been having trouble getting through this book. One of my book buddies loaned it to me. He absolutely raved about it. I'm having trouble with the style of writing. Maybe it's because I'm not from the South and the dialect is unfamiliar to me. I have trouble visualizing the characters saying what they're saying. The story behind the story is much more interesting.

Apparently this professor guy got the manuscript from the writer's mother. The professor wasn't keen on reading anything that was dropped off by anybody's mother. He thought it would be crap. She was very insistant. Calling him frequently. Finally he picked it up to give it a quick once over and found that it was actually quite good and he couldn't put it down. He called the mother to inquire about he writer only to find out the writer committed suicide. How sad.