Most Popular Books by 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 peace with the ghosts of the past and present. Winner of the Pultizer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, Ironweed “goes straight for the throat and the funnybone" (The New York Times). William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle of novels reflect what he once described as the fusion of his imagination with a single place. A native and longtime resident of Albany, New York, his work moves from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, chronicling family life, the city’s netherworld, and its spheres of power—financial, ethnic, political—often among the Irish-Americans who dominated the city in this period. The novels in his cycle include, Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed, Quinn’s Book, Very Old Bones, The Flaming Corsage, and Roscoe.

Legsinaugurated William Kennedy''s brilliant cycle of novels (including Billy Phelan''s Greatest Gameand Ironweed) set in Albany, New York. True to both life and myth, Legsbrilliantly evokes the flamboyant career of the legendary gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond, who was finally murdered in Albany. Through the equivocal eyes of Diamond''s attorney, Marcus Gorman (who scraps a promising political career for the more elemental excitement of the criminal underworld), we watch as Legs and his showgirl mistress, Kiki Roberts, blaze their gaudy trail across the tabloid pages of the 1920s and 1930s. Diamond and his gangster entourage emerge as emblematic figures from an era of American innocence-and corruption.

It is 1958 and the Phelan clan has gathered to hear Peter Phelan''s will, read by the living Peter himself, an artist whose paintings about members of the family have given him belated critical recognition. The paintings illuminate the lives of his brother Francis (the exiled hero of Ironweed), and a family ancestor, Malachi McIlhenny, a true madman beset by demons, and determined to send them back to hell. Orson Purcell, bastard son of Peter, and half-mad himself, encounters his first true solace through this obsessive and close-knit family he has never quite entered; most especially through his Aunt Molly, whose intense love affair holds secrets that only another love can resurrect. It is through Orson''s modern eye that we see the tragedies, obsessions, and clandestine joys of this singular family. This is climatic work in William Kennedy''s Albany Cycle, riding on the melody of its language and the power of its story, which is full of surprise, comedy, terror, and earthly delight.

Filled with Dickensian characters, a vivid sense of history, and marvelously inventive humor, Quinn’s Book is an engaging delight from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed “Kennedy writes with verve and nerve. His wit, always sharp, has rarely been sharper. He paints a full and lively canvas...Quinn’s Book casts a lovely light, indeed.”—Stephen King From the moment he rescues the beautiful, passionate Maud Fallon from the icy waters of the Hudson one wintry day in 1849, Daniel Quinn, a twelve-year-old orphan, is thrust into a bewildering, adventure-filled journey through the tumult of nineteenth-century America. As he quests after the beguiling and elusive Maud (she’s fourteen), Daniel will witness the rise and fall of great dynasties in upstate New York, epochal prize fights, exotic life in the theater, visitations from spirits beyond the grave, horrific battles between Irish immigrants and the "Know-Nothings," the vicious New York draft riots, heroic passages through the Underground Railroad, and the bloody despair of the Civil War. William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle of novels reflect what he once described as the fusion of his imagination with a single place. A native and longtime resident of Albany, New York, his work moves from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, chronicling family life, the city’s netherworld, and its spheres of power—financial, ethnic, political—often among the Irish-Americans who dominated the city in this period. The novels in his cycle include, Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed, Quinn’s Book, Very Old Bones, The Flaming Corsage, and Roscoe.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed explores the seedy underbelly of a Depression-era town in the second novel in the Albany cycle Billy Phelan, a slightly tarnished poker player, pool hustler, and small-time bookie, moves throuh the lurid nighttime glare of Albany, New York. A resourceful man full of Irish pluck, Billy works the fringes of the city''s sporting life with his own particular style and private code of honor, until he finds himself in the dangerous position of potential go-between in the kidnapping of a political boss’s son. In relating Billy''s fall from underworld grace and his storybook redemption, Kennedy captures the seamy underside of a brassy, sweaty city that would prefer to pretend that the Depression doesn''t exist. William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle of novels reflect what he once described as the fusion of his imagination with a single place. A native and longtime resident of Albany, New York, his work moves from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, chronicling family life, the city’s netherworld, and its spheres of power—financial, ethnic, political—often among the Irish-Americans who dominated the city in this period. The novels in his cycle include, Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed, Quinn’s Book, Very Old Bones, The Flaming Corsage, and Roscoe.

To read these interviews given between 1969 and 1996 is to gain insights into William Kennedy''s high seriousness in pursuing the craft of fiction and to witness the artistic growth of this remarkable writer. The twenty-four interviews in this collection reveal how the opportunities and challenges in Kennedy''s writing life parallel those other contemporary writers have faced in the last years of the century.The high drama of imagined worlds, he says, becomes a Rosetta Stone, the key that unlocks the very real mysteries and complexities of our daily lives.You''re inventing out of a confluence of known facts and random ideas, he says about the process of writing, juxtaposing reality and abstractions, and then wham! You''ve got something brand new in your head, and on the page. You''re functioning on a plane of existence you didn''t know was possible. That''s creation, and it''s profound pleasure. It''s what you live for.Readers of these interviews will be privy to another process as well, the arduous but exciting process by which Kennedy has emerged as a major voice in contemporary letters. His meteoric rise to fame in 1983 and his continuing popularity since are the stuff of drama and folklore. In that year his novel Ironweed, rejected earlier by thirteen publishers, was finally published by Viking. It earned him a MacArthur Award, the New York Book Critics Circle Award, and a Pulitzer Prize. Governor Mario Cuomo honored him with the New York State Governor''s Arts Award and declared that in Kennedy Albany (had) found its Homer. Hollywood came calling and secured screen rights to Ironweed, Legs, and Billy Phelan''s Greatest Game. With Francis Ford Coppola, Kennedy co-wrote thescreenplay of The Cotton Club.The career that lifted off with such dramatic momentum has shown no signs of flagging. With steady regularity, Kennedy continues to add to his Albany Cycle of novels, as he experiments boldly with the craft of fiction.

In a Manhattan hotel room, the "Love Nest Killings of 1908" take place. But the mystery of who killed whom, and why, does not unravel until we explore the lives of Katrina Taylor and Edward Daughtery. He is a first-generation Irish American and a successful playwright. She is a high-born Protestant, a beautiful seductive woman with complex attitudes towards life. Their marriage is a passionate one, but a cataclysmic hotel fire changes it into something else altogether. Moving back and forth between the 1880s and 1912, The Flaming Corsagefollows Katrina and Edward as other lives impact upon theirs-their socially opposed families; Edward''s flirtatious actress paramour, Melissa Spencer; the physician Giles Fitzroy, and his wife; and Edward''s friend, the cynical journalist Thomas Maginn. The Flaming Corsageevocatively portrays through the lens of Albany''s robust Irishtown and English-Dutch aristocracy the seething, contradictory impulses of our humanity, lusts and furies that know no bounds of time or place.

This text is a facsimile edition of the first history of the cinema by W.K.L. Dickson and Antonia Dickson. The book was first published in 1895 when practical moving pictures were only two years old.

“Thick with crime, passion, and backroom banter” (The New Yorker), Roscoe is an odyssey of great scope and linguistic verve, a deadly, comic masterpiece from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed It''s V-J Day, the war is over, and Roscoe Conway, after twenty-six years as the second in command of Albany''s notorious political machine, decides to quit politics forever. But there''s no way out, and only his Machiavellian imagination can help him cope with the erupting disasters. Every step leads back to the past—to the early loss of his true love, the takeover of city hall, the machine''s fight with FDR and Al Smith to elect a governor, and the methodical assassination of gangster Jack "Legs" Diamond. William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle of novels reflect what he once described as the fusion of his imagination with a single place. A native and longtime resident of Albany, New York, his work moves from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, chronicling family life, the city’s netherworld, and its spheres of power—financial, ethnic, political—often among the Irish-Americans who dominated the city in this period. The novels in his cycle include, Legs, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, Ironweed, Quinn’s Book, Very Old Bones, The Flaming Corsage, and Roscoe.

A detailed account of William Kennedy''s 1851 Arctic expedition to rescue Sir John Franklin, first published in 1853.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ironweed offers an eloquent history of his colorful hometown in this marvelous book that''s part journalism and part memoir. William Kennedy''s celebrated cycle of novels has put Albany on the literary map. In O Albany! we visit the city''s ethnic and social neighborhoods. We meet uncommon characters who tread on Kennedy''s stage—Erastus Corning, America''s longest-running mayor (forty-three years in office); the Prohibition celebrity Jack "Legs" Diamond; the black matriarch Olivia Rorie, who transformed Albany''s slums; Nelson Rockefeller and the "greatest marble project in the history of the world"; the political boss Dan O''Connell, who took City Hall in 1921 and never let go, even after he died. Embellished with fifty-five vintage photographs and eleven maps drawn for this book, O Albany! is a historical lover letter from Kennedy to his native city. “A nice blend of nostalgia and serious history...You come away from this book''s fascinating view of the American experience, the human experience, feeling hopeful.”—The New York Times Book Review

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 running down the street. Márquez, however, is not surprised; like all great writers of both fiction and nonfiction, he knows that impossible things happen every day. A remarkable collection from one of America''s greatest authors, Riding the Yellow Trolley Car features work from all stages of Kennedy''s career. Through each piece runs the thread that ties together his greatest works: a love and deep understanding of his hometown, the city of Albany, New York, and the good and evil men who have made it what it is. Featuring interviews and essays on some of the most prominent authors of the twentieth century, from Saul Bellow and E. L. Doctorow to Norman Mailer and the legendary García Márquez—as well as insightful reflections on topics from baseball to the death of a prominent cat to Kennedy''s wife''s hiccups— Riding the Yellow Trolley Car is an essential book for all those who love to read, or live to write.

Photographs of the New York State Capitol building are accompanied by a brief essay on its history.

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