William Kennedy

“[W]ith Ironweed, William Kennedy is making American literature.”—The Washington Post Book World

Francis Phelan has hit bottom. More than twenty years ago, the ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, and full-time bum with the gift of gab left Albany after a tragic accident. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town and faced with the wife and home he abandoned, roaming the old familiar streets, trying to make...

The narrative is based on an actual event: the attempted 1933 kidnapping of John O'Connell Jr., the nephew of Albany Democratic boss Daniel P. O'Connell. n 1930s Albany, New York, Billy Phelan is a hustler at pool, card sharp, bowler, and occasional bookmaker. Martin Daugherty is a reporter, and the son of a famous writer now grown old. Phelan and Daugherty become involved in the events surrounding the kidnapping of the son of a corrupt Albany political...

The collected nonfiction of the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ironweed: "A great pleasure to read no matter what the subject" (Library Journal). When William Kennedy arrives in Barcelona, his guidebook recommends taking the trolley around town-but the trolleys haven't run in the city for years. He's on his way to interview the novelist Gabriel García Márquez when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees something impossible: a yellow trolley...

In 1849, a boy saves a girl from the Hudson River in this story "of wonders and sweetness, magic and horrors {that} immerses itself in the marvelous" (The Boston Sunday Globe). A penniless Irish orphan, Daniel Quinn is among the crowds gathered at the Hudson River in Albany to watch a legendary dancer aboard the ferry. But when the boat strikes the ice that chokes the water on this wintry day, awe turns to terror. Though the dancer's life is lost,...

His life radically changed by an encounter with Ernest Hemingway in Cuba, journalist Daniel Quinn embarks on a turbulent journey marked by such historical events as the Albany race riots, the rise of Fidel Castro, and the assassination of Robert Kennedy.

Francis Phelan is a drunken former baseball player running away from life and the painful, guilty memories that haunt him. Francis wanders the streets of Albany, New York with his pal Rudy, looking for odd jobs, cheap drinks, and flophouses.