- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd (1 Feb 1986)
- ISBN-10: 0140113622
- ISBN-13: 978-0140113624
- Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,538,474 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"A powerfully affecting work, abounding in humor and heartbreak."--Chicago Tribune Bookworld
"A remarkable and most original novel."--Alison Lurie
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
"A remarkable and most original novel."--Alison Lurie
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Francis Phelan, ex-big-leaguer, part-time gravedigger, full-time bum with the gift of gab, is back in town. He left Albany twenty-two years earlier after he dropped his infant son accidentally, and the boy died. Now he's on the way back to the wife and home he abandoned, haunted at every corner by the ghosts of his violent life. Francis; his wino ladyfriend of nine years, Helen; and his stumblebum pal, Rudy, shuffle their ragtag way through the city's bleakest streets, surviving on gumption, muscatel, and black wit. Destiny is not their business.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ironweeed is perhaps the most famous, although arguably not the greatest, of the Albany Cycle. I can do no better than to recommend this wholeheartedly to anyone interested in reading some of the finest American literature of this century. If at all possible read the Albany Cycle as a set + in the correct order (this is the third I think!). The books make a lot more sense when viewed as a whole rather than as individual works (a mistake that several people seem to have made who contributed to these reviews! ). Read them ALL as soon as you possibly can!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Ironweed introduced to me the glorious possibility and power of the novel. Francis Phelan's story is not simply that of an Albany bum, but the story of anyone who has ever felt guilt or pain about the past. Kennedy uses the English language like a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall. The book is thought-provoking and complex.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Kennedy's writing of family, the magical, and the terribly real have made him the finest American writer of his generation. Unfairly labeled a Regional writer; his writing is universal, timeless.
Kennedy is the most well-rounded writer of literature to be writing since the days Hemingway and Fitzgerald roamed the globe.
Kennedy is the most well-rounded writer of literature to be writing since the days Hemingway and Fitzgerald roamed the globe.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"My guilt is all I have left. If I lose it..."
With Ironweed, William Kennedy completes his three novels of Depression-era Albany, wrapping up this study of time, place, and people with an emotionally gripping Pulitzer... Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2006 by Mary Whipple
Terrible Book
WHAT A WASTE OF MY TIME! I had to read Ironweed. I admit that the beginning was horribly slow, but I had faith that things would pick up. Boy was I wrong. Read more
Published on 15 Mar 1999
Illustrative of family pain half-forgotten, fully felt
This was the first book to show me what traumatic personal events in the story of immigration to America might have brought on the deep, collective sorrow that runs, unexplained,... Read more
Published on 4 Mar 1999
Good Book!
Kennedy chooses an interesting topic of a hard-luck guy coping with his past. An honest look at surviving with today's problems and yesterday's skeletons. Read more
Published on 5 Feb 1999
I read it for school, and I am NOT feeling it at ALL.
I had to pick a book off of the "Top 100 Books" list for my sophmore honors English class. I chose William Kennedy's award winning, "Ironweed". Read more
Published on 8 Dec 1998
Outstanding Language; Brilliant Style; Hard to Forget
When I bought Ironweed, it was for the mere purpose of contemplating just what it was about the novel that won it the Pulitzer prize. Read more
Published on 6 Nov 1998
grossly over-rated
A mediocre diversion, sententious and banal, grossly--or rather, grotesquely--over-rated.
Published on 27 Oct 1998
haunting, lovely
oh, lost people, our humanity...
Published on 8 Dec 1997
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