SALE ON NOW! PROMOTIONS
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 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.
A very high-class gangster epic about Jack Legs Diamond whose deeds loom large in Prohibition annals. The writing strives for grandeur (it's sure better than Puzo's), with some occult touches and bright Jimmy Cagney-Mae Clark patter. Legs has ten ion dollars in booze stashed away in the Catskills, where he's on the lam after blowing several holes into Tim Leafy at Legs' own Hotsy Totsy Club in mid-Manhattan. The story, told by his adoring Albany lawyer Marcus German, covers Legs' last two years. He is called Jack by those who know him but his nickname is shown to be appropriate in a lovely scene where he reluctantly wings out a Charleston and Black Bottom with a chorine called Kiki. Gentleman Jack's main interest, aside from bootlegging and protecting himself from rival gangs, is ragging his beautiful wife Alice about his sexy mistress Kiki and dividing his time between their separate menages. He has some kind of real heart for these broads (though canaries are sometimes seen to drop dead in their cages when Jack walks in) and few readers will forget Kilo's kiss-and-make-up failure at fudge-making after Jack breaks her hand in his. There are several stand-out scenes that cry for film and they are funny and despite pretensions - effective. (Kirkus Reviews)
