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Ironweed
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis
- Length: 8 hrs
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Publisher's summary
Ironweed is the best-known of William Kennedy's three Albany-based novels. Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, has hit bottom. Years ago he left Albany in a hurry after killing a scab during a trolley workers' strike; he ran away again after accidentally – and fatally – dropping his infant son. Now, in 1938, Francis is back in town, roaming the old familiar streets with his hobo pal, Helen, trying to make peace with the ghosts of the past and the present.
As an added bonus, when you purchase our Audible Modern Vanguard production of William Kennedy's book, you'll also receive an exclusive Jim Atlas interview. This interview – where James Atlas interviews Russell Banks about the life and work of William Kennedy – begins as soon as the audiobook ends.
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The living and the dead, the past and the present linger together in William Kennedy's haunting, lyrical masterpiece, Ironweed. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1984 and one of the best books in Kennedy's deservedly-praised "Albany cycle", Ironweed reads like a classic novel James Joyce would have written if he had grown up in upstate New York in the late 19th century. One sentence flows seamlessly into the next, the words lingering in your mind like the lyrics of a melancholy ballad sung by an Irish tenor who's lived a hard, heart-breaking life.
Set on Halloween and the day after in 1938, in the midst of the Great Depression, Ironweed tells the story of Francis Phelan, a middle-aged, self-described "bum" who once dazzled fans playing third base for the Washington Senators but who's now simply struggling to get through one day at a time. Phelan's life went off track years earlier when he accidentally dropped his 13-day-old son on the floor, killing the baby.
The baby's death and other tragic events in Phelan's past haunt him. Phelan vainly tries to forget such incidents. But the harder he tries, the more real his demons become. So as the novel unfolds, many of the people Phelan once knew who died years ago now appear more real to him than the living who walk the streets of Albany. And yet Phelan never asks for anyone's pity. Kennedy wisely avoids sentimentalizing Phelan's struggle to come to terms with his past. Instead, Kennedy bestows honor and dignity on Phelan and his fellow dispossessed friends, writing about the down-and-out with a touch as light and graceful as a concert pianist.
And like Jack Nicholson, who famously portrayed Phelan in a film adaptation of Kennedy's grim novel, narrator Jonathan Davis delivers an astounding reading of Ironweed in the Audible Modern Vanguard production of this book. Like Nicholson, Davis gives an understated yet powerful performance, allowing the grandeur of the author's vivid language to speak for itself. And like Kennedy, Davis veers from a gritty, hardscrabble tone of voice one second, to a solemn, elegiac whisper when expressing Phelan's yearning to set things right in his life once and for all. Ironweed will cling to your memory long after you've parted ways with Phelan and his memorable cast of friends. -Ken Ross
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As usual the book is better than the movie
- By Denzil and Judy's Account on 03-25-10
By: Rebecca Wells
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Rabbit, Run
- By: John Updike
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his - or any other - generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is 26 years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty - even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness, and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path.
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A Thinking Man's Novel
- By L. Berlyne on 01-12-09
By: John Updike
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The Sound and the Fury
- By: William Faulkner
- Narrated by: Grover Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The Sound and the Fury is the tragedy of the Compson family, featuring some of the most memorable characters in literature: beautiful, rebellious Caddy; the manchild Benjy; haunted, neurotic Quentin; Jason, the brutal cynic; and Dilsey, their black servant. Their lives fragmented and harrowed by history and legacy, the character’s voices and actions mesh to create what is arguably Faulkner’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century.
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Hang in
- By W.Denis on 07-11-05
By: William Faulkner
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The Hollow Ground
- By: Natalie S. Harnett
- Narrated by: Luci Christian
- Length: 10 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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The underground mine fires ravaging Pennsylvania coal country have forced 11-year-old Brigid Howley and her family to seek refuge with her estranged grandparents, the formidable Gram and the black lung-stricken Gramp. Tragedy is no stranger to the Howleys, a proud Irish-American clan who takes strange pleasure in the "curse" laid upon them generations earlier by a priest who ran afoul of the Molly Maguires. The weight of this legacy rests heavily on a new generation, when Brigid, already struggling to keep her family together, makes a grisly discovery in a long-abandoned bootleg mine shaft.
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Disfunction makes a good read
- By NHull on 05-30-14
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Sometimes a Great Notion
- By: Ken Kesey
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 30 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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A literary icon sometimes seen as a bridge between the Beat Generation and the hippies, Ken Kesey scored an unexpected hit with his first novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. His successful follow-up, Sometimes a Great Notion, was also transformed into a major motion picture, directed by and starring Paul Newman. Here, Oregon’s Stamper family does what it can to survive a bitter strike dividing their tiny logging community. And as tensions rise, delicate family bonds begin to fray and unravel.
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Sometimes a Great Novel Pops up out of Nowhere
- By Mr. Eyuz on 06-07-19
By: Ken Kesey
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The Lost Country
- By: William Gay
- Narrated by: T. Ryder Smith
- Length: 15 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Billy Edgewater is a harbinger of doom. Estranged from his family, discharged from the navy and touched by a rising desperation, he sets out hitchhiking home to East Tennessee, where his father is slowly dying. On the road, separately, are Sudy and Bradshaw, brother and sister, and a one-armed con man named Roosterfish. All, in one way or another, have their pasts and futures embroiled with D. L. Harkness, a predator in all the ways there are.
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One of the finest novels I have read!
- By Donald B. Eager on 09-06-21
By: William Gay
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Angel of Harlem
- By: Kuwanna Haulsey
- Narrated by: Brenda Pressley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Inspired by the extraordinary events of Dr. May Chinn’s life, Angel of Harlem is a deeply affecting story of love and transcendence. Weaving seamlessly scenes from the battlefields of the Civil War, during which her father escaped from slavery, to the Harlem living rooms and kitchen tables where May is sometimes forced to operate on her patients, this fascinating novel lays bare the heart of a woman who changed the face of medicine.
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Really Enjoyed!
- By Amazon Customer on 08-08-19
By: Kuwanna Haulsey
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Cannery Row
- By: John Steinbeck
- Narrated by: Jerry Farden
- Length: 5 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Published in 1945, Cannery Row focuses on the acceptance of life as it is: both the exuberance of community and the loneliness of the individual. Drawing on his memories of the real inhabitants of Monterey, California, Steinbeck interweaves the stories of Doc, Henri, Mack and his boys, and the other characters in this world where only the fittest survive, to create a novel that is at once one of his most humorous and most poignant works.
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Five stars with a Caveat
- By Bette on 04-23-12
By: John Steinbeck
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The Missing
- By: Tim Gautreaux
- Narrated by: Henry Strozier
- Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this spellbinder by critically acclaimed author Tim Gautreaux, Sam Simoneaux returns from World War I to rebuild his life. But when a girl is snatched from the New Orleans department store where he's working, he hops aboard a Mississippi steamboat to find her - and dredges up ghosts from his painful past.
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The Missing
- By Michael L. Wintory on 07-11-09
By: Tim Gautreaux
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Some Sing, Some Cry
- By: Ntozake Shange, Ifa Bayeza
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 26 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Audible presents the multigenerational epic Some Sing, Some Cry. Created by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza, this audiobook takes listeners on a journey through Reconstruction, two world wars, the Harlem renaissance, and Vietnam to modern day America.Some Sing, Some Cry begins at the threshold of one family’s freedom. We meet Betty Mayfield, newly emancipated from Sweet Tamarind, a lush and haunted rice plantation off the Carolina coast.
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I Sang, I Cried
- By Jo on 09-29-10
By: Ntozake Shange, and others
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Midnight Cowboy
- By: James Leo Herlihy
- Narrated by: Michael Urie
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Midnight Cowboy is considered by many to be one of the best American novels published since World War II. The main story centers around Joe Buck, a naive but eager and ambitious young Texan, who decides to leave his dead-end job in search of a grand and glamorous life he believes he will find in New York City. But the city turns out to be a much more difficult place to negotiate than Joe could ever have imagined. He soon finds himself and his dreams compromised. Buck's fall from innocence and his relationship with the crippled street hustler Ratso Rizzo form the novel's emotional nucleus.
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Superb
- By Macala Shon on 01-26-21
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Excellent and Enjoyable
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Com 23 anos, a infanta Catarina de Bragança, filha de D. Luísa de Gusmão e de D. João IV, deixou para trás tudo o que lhe era querido e próximo para navegar rumo a uma vida nova. No coração, um misto de tristeza e alegria. Saudades da sua Lisboa, de Vila Viçosa, do cheiro a laranjas, dos seus irmãos que já haviam partido deste mundo e dos que ficavam em Portugal a lutar pelo poder. Mas os seus olhos escuros deixavam perceber o entusiasmo pelo casamento com o homem dos seus sonhos, Charles de Inglaterra, um príncipe encantado que Catarina amava perdidamente ainda antes de o conhecer.
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A little off from my usual but..
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Abridged
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A splendid, violent spring suddenly grips Bucharest in the 1980s after a brutal winter. Tolea, an eccentric middle-aged intellectual who has been dismissed from his job as a high school teacher on "moral grounds", is investigating his father's death 40 years after the fact and is drawn into a web of suspicion and black humor.
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'Rumpole and the Christmas Break' sees the irrepressible barrister defending a young Muslim man who has been charged with murder. As the case adjourns for the holiday, the cards are stacked against him and the judge is hostile. Stuck in a country house hotel over Christmas, can Rumpole use the break to clear his client's name? Bill Wallis reads this special seasonal story starring Horace Rumpole, scourge of all QCs and friend of the criminal classes.
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Die Lust am Gärtnern - und am Gärtner... Zur Hölle mit den lieben Kollegen! Nachdem ihr schon wieder ein Mann bei der Beförderung vorgezogen wurde, hat Luisa die Nase voll von 14-Stunden-Arbeitstagen und Bürointrigen. Dann erbt sie von ihrer Tante einen Schrebergarten. Was soll ich mit einem Komposthaufen, wenn ich einen Chefstuhl will?, denkt sich Luisa.
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Maggie and Ira Moran are on a road trip from Baltimore, Maryland, to Deer Lick, Pennsylvania, to attend the funeral of a friend. Along the way, they reflect on the state of their marriage, its trials, and its triumphs - through their quarrels, their routines, and their ability to tolerate each other's faults with patience and affection.
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This novel has earned all the recognition ---
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A Flag for Sunrise
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Possessed of astonishing dramatic, emotional, and philosophical resonance, A Flag for Sunrise is a novel in the grand tradition about Americans drawn into the maelstrom of a small Central American country on the brink of revolution. From the book's inception, listeners will be seized by the dangers and nightmare suspense of life lived on the rim of a political volcano.
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A towering achievement
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For years, they were the best of friends: the grand, erratic Humboldt and the ambitious young Charlie. But now Humboldt has died a failure, and Charlie's success-ridden life has taken various turns for the worse. Then Humboldt acts from the grave to change Charlie's life: he has left Charlie something in his will.
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Great Book, Great Reader
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朝星夜星
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幕末から維新、明治と激動の時代の外交を料理で支えた男がいた――長崎生まれの料理人・草野丈吉で、店の名は「自由亭」。
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Narrenturm
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Eigentlich ist das Ende der Zeiten schon lange gekommen. Im zweiten Monat des Jahres 1420 sollte es sein, an einem Montag nach dem Festtag der heiligen Scholastica, so jedenfalls hatten es die Chiliasten mit ihrer Lehre vom Tausendjährigen Reich prophezeit.
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Based in part on Cheever's adolescence in New England, the novel follows the destinies of the impecunious and wildly eccentric Wapshots of St. Botolphs, a quintessential Massachusetts fishing village. Here are the stories of Captain Leander Wapshot, venerable sea dog and would-be suicide; of his licentious older son, Moses; and of Moses' adoring and errant younger brother, Coverly.
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Beautiful 1950s Great Expectations-like Novel
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The Sheltering Sky
- A Novel
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In this classic work of psychological terror, Paul Bowles examines the ways in which Americans apprehend an alien culture—and the ways in which their incomprehension destroys them. The story of three American travelers adrift in the cities and deserts of North Africa after World War II, The Sheltering Sky is at once merciless and heartbreaking in its compassion. It etches the limits of human reason and intelligence—perhaps even the limits of human life—when they touch the unfathomable emptiness and impassive cruelty of the desert.
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Classic Work of American 20th Century Fiction
- By Christian B. Kaufman on 06-12-24
By: Paul Bowles
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A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain
- By: Robert Olen Butler
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- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Robert Olen Butler's lyrical and poignant collection of stories about the aftermath of the Vietnam War and its impact on the Vietnamese was acclaimed by critics across the nation and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. This edition includes two subsequently published stories - "Salem" and "Missing" - that brilliantly complete the collection's narrative journey with a return to the jungles of Vietnam.
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RARE AND WONDERFUL STORIES!
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What listeners say about Ironweed
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Scott Starbuck
- 12-23-20
Great a wonder of story telling in the 1930's
The language in the book is dense filled with reality and beautiful images. Listening it keeps your attention and you are swept away into the harsh almost crushing America of buns, hobos and drifters. Everyone has a back story and they all come together to support the main character, it is a very dark and almost depressing listen.
The narrator is perfect, he pushes the story with transparent delivery, never shading the prose, but letting the words fill the performance.
I highly recommend this book.
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- Sher from Provo
- 05-15-12
What a sad, sorrowful story
Some time ago, a man in our area took his little boy deer hunting on a cold winter morning. The boy must have been about 4 years old. He had fallen asleep and was secured into his car seat when the dad left for a while to go deer spotting. When he got back, the boy was gone. He was found sometime later, not too far from the truck, frozen to death. I can only imagine the grief this poor man must have experienced. On top of that, he was charged with negligent homicide. On the morning of his arraignment, the man told his friends he would be back in time for it, but he just wanted to go up to the spot where his baby had died. When he got there, he took his own life. I do not judge this man for what he did. Fact is, I would probably have done the same thing if it had happened to me. How could you resume your life as a responsible, contributing adult after something like that?
That is the feeling tone of ???Ironweed.??? It is a dark, dirty, sordid and sad story. Francis Phelan was on a long journey away from the circumstances of his existence, but eventually found himself trying to go home. I learned so much from this book on so many levels. We worry about so many stupid things, but Fran and his compatriots only worried about two: 1) Where will I sleep tonight? And 2) Where and when will I find something to eat? Those are pretty basic levels on Maslow???s hierarchy of needs. Still, Fran shows some hope for a more normal life in the face of acceptance and love from the family he abandoned 22 years earlier. I do not recommend this book to just anyone. It is beautifully written, but deals with a dark and somber story among the seedier members of society. Not much about it is light hearted or happy. It is a long ride through much pain and sorrow before even a glimmer of hope is found. Nevertheless, the book ends with us having reason to hope that Francis at last finds a modicum of peace and love within the shelter of his family???s love. This story is bound to be on my mind for a long time.
The narrator is very good, but has an annoying way of saying '"Francis said . . ." or whoever. I guess I eventually got used to it, but would hesitate to get another book narrated by him for that reason. Otherwise, he was very good.
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4 people found this helpful
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
- Cheryl
- 10-27-14
A Depressing Heartwarming Story
This was a great character story about the protagonist, Francis Phelan, his friend, Rudy, his long time significant other, Helen, and his life of pain, alcoholism, terrible coincidences, and frustrated dreams.
I liked how the ghosts/characters of his past kept appearing and watching him. I liked Francis, felt sorry for him, and cheered for him.
The author, William Kennedy's writing style is excellent. The narrator, Jonathan Davis, was perfect.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Steve
- 05-22-10
Beautiful!
Will listen to the other books in the trilogy.
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- Jorden
- 04-11-10
Splendid grim tale
Great story that takes place in early 20th century, about an alcoholic that comes back to his hometown he left so long ago. A reunion with ghosts, memories and family. The characters and town really come alive, William Kennedy is an awesome story teller.
I personally love the narrator, one of the reasons I chose to get this book. The other reason was that this book was on critics' lists, and for good reason. You're safe spending your credit on this one.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Albert Kendrick
- 11-13-18
Quite the surprise
As I began reading this I was at some level aware of the story. I had never watched the movie, but I was aware when the movie came out and I must have seen a trailer or read something about the story at that time. And I had read some GR reviews that described enough of the tone of the novel to confirm my other impressions. I wasn't expecting to love this story. I was thinking it would be dark and depressing. Well, that preliminary impression was not far off, but it didn't matter. I thought the writing was wonderful, and the characters were crisp and vivid. Yes, there was a lot of violence, and there was frustration for me because the characters didn't have to be in the position they found themselves. But that was an integral part of the story. It wasn't all bad luck. There were choices made, and recognition by the characters of those choices. They knew themselves such that their lives were inevitable. That inevitability made the thoroughly enjoyable and engrossing nature of the story that much more impressive. #Violent #Addiction #Surprising #NewYorkState #Tagsgiving #Sweepstakes
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- Michael
- 07-22-17
Darkly Lovely
This writing is almost magical. The novel follows a bum in Albany NY during the great depression and his interaction with other destitute homeless, the desperately poor, and his estranged family as he faces deadly cold, wild dogs, his own deeds, his memories, and his mortality. One might expect the subject matter to be dark, and maybe even depressing but, as I said, this writing is almost magical. The author immerses the reader in a strange glow of friends and family and love and home that changes the hue of the hunger, scars, and fears into something truly lovely.
The narration was excellent subtly expressing the conflicting emotions of the character very well, adding pleasure to the listening.
The was my first William Kennedy novel and I will add the others in the Albany Series to my queue.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Placeholder
- 01-28-21
I waited 36 years to read this one
I'm so glad I finally delved into this book. It was the right time for me. I could read it again just to savoury the good parts. The narrator was the best! It was a real reading, not overly acted, yet the characters' voices remained distinct. I want to thank him. William Kenedy has my deepest gratitude for his creative work. Thank God books don't go away so fast.
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- David C.
- 02-23-24
Hauntings and musings at the bottom of a bottle
Hauntings and musings at the bottom of a bottle
#ironweed, the film adaptation of.the novel by #williamkennedy starting Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep, was one of those movies that I thought I had watched one late night on 90's HBO but honestly could remember nothing about. Landing at #92 on the #modernlibrarytop100novelsany novels in the bottom quarter of the list have received mixed reviews by me. This is a pleasant exception. Being the third of eight Kennedy novels that make up #The Albany Cycle", so dubbed as the author madly loved the upstate New York City, this novel is based on 1938 and focuses on former Big League Baseball player #francisphelan who has spent the last twenty-odd years on the bum and deep in the bottle following the accidental death of his infant son. Having wandered the highway and byways for the last nine years with fellow alcoholic Helen, she, like so many within his intimate circle of rummies and bums suffer from untreated illnesses and the ravages of living in the open with no money, little to eat and every dime more likely invested in the next bottle.
Written in 1982, Ironweed won the #1984 #pulitzerprizeforfiction , and it is well deserved. As a fan of Steinbeck, Faulker and Hemingway, their influence in his style is obvious, beautiful and compelling. I will be diving more into The Albany Cycle in the future. And maybe I will try watching the film again.
#pulitzerprizereadingchallenge #readtheworldchallenge #globalreadingchallenge #americanliterature
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- B. Leddy
- 10-01-12
pulitzer prize winner for a reason
This is a great study of the psychology underpinning homelessness and addiction. The move with Jack Nicholson and Merryl Streep was good, but don't miss the book - very good.
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5 people found this helpful