Reading William Kennedy

Cloth $34.95L    |    0-8156-2929-X    |   2001

This intensive study of the writings of William Kennedy offers a range of possible interpretations into his works.

Description
A favorite of library and community reading groups, William Kennedy is best known for his novels Ironweed and Flaming Corsage. This eminently readable book provides a helpful introduction to students and others interested in his work. With engaging finesse, Michael Patrick Gillespie provides a keen analysis of Kennedy’s best-known works, a firm base for interpretation, and a better understanding of the cultural world that shapes the characters and informs the plots of Kennedy’s novels. Rather than laying down what one should see when reading Kennedy’s works, the book moves to the next stage of exploring diverse responses to Kennedy’s canon, broadening the reader’s awareness of the range of alternative strategies and perspective.

Gillespie begins with an introduction that lays out the imaginative context for Kennedy’s work. Subsequent chapters, in three parts, provide extended treatments of his early work, key elements in the first three Albany novels, and finally the maturity of his overall fiction.

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Author
Michael Patrick Gillespie is professor of English at Marquette University. He is the author of books on Joyce and Oscar Wilde and numerous essays on British and Irish writers.

6 x 9, 208 pages, index