Other editions of book Ironweed

Paperback. Pub Date :2013-10-24 Pages: 208 Language: English Publisher: Pocket Books 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 hes 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 citys bleakest streets. surviving on gumption. muscatel. and black wit Destiny is not their business..

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. 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.... New York Times: "Rich in plot and dramatic tension... almost Joycean in its variety of rhetoric... the novel goes straight for the throat and the funnybone." Wall Street Journal: "[Kennedy's] power is such that the reader will follow him almost anywhere, to the edge of tragedy and back again to redemption."

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. "A powerfully affecting work, abounding in humor and heartbreak." (Chicago Tribune Bookworld) IRONWEED is last in the Albany Trilogy, preceeded by LEGS and BILLY PHELAN'S GREATEST GAME.