ISBN: 9780140070200

INTRODUCTION Ironweed is an unusual novel which William Kennedy found difficult to get published. The Viking Press finally agreed to publish Ironweed in 1983 along with Kennedy"s two prev… Plus…

INTRODUCTION Ironweed is an unusual novel which William Kennedy found difficult to get published. The Viking Press finally agreed to publish Ironweed in 1983 along with Kennedy"s two previous novels, which are, like Ironweed, set in Albany, New York. The Nile on eBay   FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE   Ironweed by William Kennedy The Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is now a movie directed by Hector Babenco ( Kiss of the Spider Woman) starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Nicholson plays Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, full-time drunk, a man trying to make peace with the ghosts of his past and present. 8 pages of photos. FORMATPaperback LANGUAGEEnglish CONDITIONBrand New Publisher Description Winner of The Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionIn this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the third in Kennedy's Albany cycle, Francis Phelan, ex-ballplayer, part-time gravedigger, and full-time bum with the gift of gab, has hit bottom. Years earlier he'd left Albany after he dropped his infant son accidentally, and the boy died. 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 present. Author Biography William Kennedy was born and raised in Albany, New York. He began his writing career as a journalist, and his novels have been translated into two dozen languages. His novel "Ironweed" won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction. Review "Rich in plot and dramatic tension . . . almost Joycean in its variety of rhetoric . . . the novel goes straight for the throat and the funnybone." - The New York Times "Astonishing . . . Kennedy's ambitious vision and soaring imaginative powers make this book one of the richest, most startling, and most satisfying novels of recent years." - The Philadelphia Inquirer "A beautifully sorrowful novel. Kennedy asks us again to confront the mystery of human behavior. And as he illuminates it, we share in one's man's struggle to understand his life." - The Washington Post "Kennedy's power is such that the reader will follow him almost anywhere, to the edge of tragedy and back again to redemption." - The Wall Street Journal Kirkus US Review In this third novel in Kennedy's Depression-Albany series, the focus is on aging, bumming Francis Phelan, sire of small-town gambler Billy (Billy Phelan's Greatest Came, 1978); and again the grand-talking prose curlicues in extravagant declamations, levitates into hellfire profanations, and celebrates the bonding of an underculture's fine, boozy chivalry - like those pre-stupor moments in a Saturday-night bar when the consciousness peers into poetry and the cosmos. Francis, a former baseball big-leaguer, is now given to "alcoholic desolation," taking on a few bucks by digging graves. And, in the cemetery, he communes with the family and neighborhood dead - especially those whose demises were linked to Francis, the "family killer": for the first time he spends a moment at the grave of his infant son Gerald, killed when Francis dropped him by accident; there's Rowdy Dick, smashed against a wall when he tried to cut off Francis' feet; and, of course, doomed motorman Harold Allen, whom Francis killed in a long-ago strike with a stone aimed sure and true. (It was then that "the compulsion to flight first hit . . . and it was as pleasurable to his being as it was natural: the running of bases after the crack of a bat, the running from accusation . . . the calumny of men and women . . . from family, from bondage, from destitution of spirit . . . in a quest for pure flight as a fulfilling mannerism of the spirit.") Still the warrior among a drift of bums, then, Francis also cronys with pal Rudy - with Helen, the wilted blossom, who's proud she chose (wasn't pushed into) a middle-age of bumming. He sets what teeth he has left and asks the bum-brotherhood's enduring question: "How do I get through the next twenty minutes?" There's a bar night with ex-singing star Oscar ("What was it that went bust for us, Oscar, how come nobody found out how to fix it for us?"); there are memories of first sex and the Big League, the winter cold, and ghosts. After all, "everything was easier than going home." But eventually Francis does - to wife Annie, still-loving Billy, daughter Peg: there's even a family dinner, in 1916 dude clothes, as Francis' ghosts build bleachers in the Phelan's back yard to watch. And finally, after one more binge and another killing in shanty-town, Francis, to the tune of the moon and an empty whiskey bottle, goes to the "holy Phelan caves." In sure: the best of Kennedy's Albany books - slender of plot machinations, rich in folk-song simplicity . . . like a "Big Rock Candy Mountain" in weepy, bone-shivering Irish brass. (Kirkus Reviews) Prizes Winner of Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 1984Winner of Pulitzer Prize Novel Category 1984 Review Quote "Rich in plot and dramatic tension . . . almost Joycean in its variety of rhetoric . . . the novel goes straight for the throat and the funnybone." - The New York Times "Astonishing . . . Kennedy's ambitious vision and soaring imaginative powers make this book one of the richest, most startling, and most satisfying novels of recent years." - The Philadelphia Inquirer "A beautifully sorrowful novel. Kennedy asks us again to confront the mystery of human behavior. And as he illuminates it, we share in one's man's struggle to understand his life." - The Washington Post "Kennedy's power is such that the reader will follow him almost anywhere, to the edge of tragedy and back again to redemption." - The Wall Street Journal Discussion Question for Reading Group Guide INTRODUCTION Ironweed is an unusual novel which William Kennedy found difficult to get published. Although his three previous novels had been highly praised, eleven major publishing companies rejected Ironweed . The Viking Press finally agreed to publish Ironweed in 1983 along with Kennedy''s two previous novels, which are, like Ironweed , set in Albany, New York. Not only were the reviews enthusiastic, but the novel was awarded the coveted Pulitzer Prize and then the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1984. Like James Joyce''s novels which made a literary legend of the streets of Dublin, Ireland, William Kennedy''s novels have brought unprecedented attention to Albany, New York, for they immortalize the life of that capital city in the 1930''s. Kennedy has also produced a collection of tales and remembrances in O Albany! that celebrates Albany''s colorful past and Kennedy''s Irish-American boyhood. But Ironweed is only secondarily a novel about Albany. It is primarily a novel about survival - about an ordinary man, a bum by his own admission, whose extraordinarily bad luck has brought him to rock bottom but also to the discovery, within himself, of an inner strength that he cannot understand. NOTE TO THE TEACHER The questions, exercises, and assignments on these pages are designed to guide students'' reading of the literary work and to provide suggestions for exploring the implications of the story through discussions, research, and writing. Most of the items can be handled individually, but small group and whole class discussions will enhance comprehension. The Response Journal should provide students with a means, first, for recording their ideas, feelings, and concerns, and then for reflecting these thoughts in their writing assignments and class discussions. These sheets may be duplicated, but teachers should select and modify items according to the needs and abilities of their students. ABOUT WILLIAM KENNEDY William Kennedy, author, screenwriter and playwright, was born and raised in Albany, New York. Kennedy brought his native city to literary life in many of his works. The Albany cycle, includes Legs , Billy Phelan''s Greatest Game , and the Pulitzer Prize winning Ironweed . The versatile Kennedy wrote the screenplay for Ironweed , the play Grand View , and cowrote the screenplay for the The Cotton Club with Francis Ford Coppola. Kennedy also wrote the nonfiction O Albany! and Riding the Yellow Trolley Car . Some of the other works he is known for include Roscoe and Very Old Bones . Kennedy is a professor in the English department at the State University of New York at Albany. He is the founding director of the New York State Writers Institute and, in 1993, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has received numerous literary awards, including the Literary Lions Award from the New York Public Library, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Governor''s Arts Award. Kennedy was also named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France and a member of the board of directors of the New York State Council for the Humanities. DISCUSSION QUESTIONS PREPARING TO READ Before the novel begins, there is a description of the flower named Ironweed. Knowing that this flower is wild and that it has a characteristically tough stem, what can you anticipate about the qualities of the main character of the novel? The story takes place in Albany in 1938. Review what was going on in the world at that time. What were living conditions like for most people? As you read the novel, stop occasionally to record your thoughts, reactions, and concerns in a Response Journal. Your journal may be a separate notebook, or it may be individual sheets which you clip together and keep in a folder. Include statements about the characters - what you learn about them, how they affect you - and about the k, [PU: Penguin Books]<