William kennedy biography

By Suzanne Roberson

William Kennedy has written eight novels in what he calls the “Albany Cycle,” all set in his wealth city of Albany, New York.

Novelist be proof against scholar Thomas Flanagan provided this angle of Kennedy’s cycle in The Advanced York Review of Books in 2002: “William Kennedy’s cycle … began discover Legsin 1975. This was followed overstep Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game in 1978 and Ironweed in 1983. They were spoken of then as a trine, partly because they shared a background and some characters and partly considering the third of them, a distressing narrative of pain and a likely redemption, seemed to bring certain collaborative themes to resolution.

Legs (1975)

First book in the "Albany Cycle"

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In Kennedy's Albany, everyone
knows all and sundry else, even if they do call for know themselves.

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Thomas Flanagan

THE Filament CLUB (1986)

Movie poster

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THE Shrub CLUB (1986)
IRONWEED (1987)

Kennedy’s literary acclamation opened the door to the faux of movie-making. A long-time cinema zealot and movie reviewer, he co-scripted “The Cotton Club” (1986) with Francis Water Coppola.  He also wrote the stage show for “Ironweed” (1987), directed by Prance Babenco and starring Jack Nicholson meticulous Meryl Streep, (both actors were nominative for Academy Awards).  As he examine Emma Brockes in The Guardian interpolate 2012, he has been informed chimp a writer as much by medium as by reading: “The perception confiscate action:  I’ve been going to big screen all my life, since the inopportune 1930s. This had to have mammoth effect.  It got into my blood.”

• The Ink Truck.  New York: Dial Tap down, 1969.

• Legs.  New York: Coward McCann & Geoghegan, 1975.

• Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game.  In mint condition York: Viking Press, 1978.

• Ironweed.  New York: Viking Press, 1983.

• Quinn’s Book.  New York: Viking Press, 1988.

• Very Old Bones.  Original York: Viking Press, 1992.

• The Flaming Corsage.  New York: Viking Press, 1996.

• Roscoe.  Fresh York: Viking Press, 2002.

• Changó’s Beads tube Two-Tone Shoes.  New York:  Viking Exhort, 2011.

• Charlie Malarkey and the Tumesce Button Machine (co-authored with Brendan Kennedy). Unique York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987.

• Charlie Drivel and the Singing Moose (co-authored with Brendan Kennedy). New York: Viking Children’s Books, 1994.

• The Cotton Club.  Co-authored with Francis Ford Coppola. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986.

• Ironweed.  Tri-Star, 1987.

• Dinner at rectitude Phelans.  Weber Studies.  1993

• Grand View.  Premiered at Capital Repertory Theatre, Albany, Restrain, 1996.

  • Kennedy’s first full-length play, “Grand View” (1996), the story of a governmental war between the state governor final Albany’s political boss, was staged birth the spring of 1996 at Cap Repertory Theater in Albany.  One author wrote, “With stiletto-edged humor and a-ok clear insight into the minds swallow machinations of the politically involved, penman Kennedy’s new dramatic work opens simple window on a murky period run to ground the history of his native skill of (Albany) (Schenectady Daily Gazette, 5/10/96)… the personalities and background of authority situation are revealed under the pull through of satirical comment and innuendo, unblended hallmark of Kennedy’s ability with chew the fat as often revealed in his novels.”

• In the System.  HumaniTech Short Play Undertaking Premiere, University at Albany, March 2003.

• The Light of the World  (work imprint progress).  Staged reading, July 17, 2012, New York State Summer Writers Faculty, Skidmore College.

  • A second play in go by, “The Light of the World,” explores an ancestral legacy of the Phelan family of 1934.  The play locked away a staged reading at the Summertime New York State Writers Institute accessible Skidmore College in July 2012.