The work of novelist William Kennedy marks the union of encyclopedic knowledge, built over ninety-eight years spent soaking up the city of Albany, and a profound empathy for human experience in all its forms, from the underworld of gangsters, gamblers, and hustlers to the heights of power and politics.
In the recently published Library of America edition of The Albany Trilogy, three of Kennedy’s greatest works set in New York’s capital take readers through vastly different but interrelated lives. [Read more…] about William Kennedy’s Albany Trilogy: An Interview with Paul Grondahl
What really happened at Donnelly’s Corners in the spring of 1929?
Until now, Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy’s literary legacy has never been celebrated in one book. From novels such as Ironweed, Legs, and Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game (the Albany Cycle) to Bootlegger of the Soul screenplays like The Cotton Club, as well as his many years of investigative journalistic work, Suzanne Lance and Paul Grondahl, have compiled reviews, essays, and interviews about Kennedy’s contributions to the literary landscape in the new book from SUNY Press, Bootlegger of the Soul. Also included is original writing by the author himself – a play and a short story. 