Very Old Bones

For William Kennedy fans, Albany conjures up a tapestry of great beauty and complexity in which the lives of an Irish American family are woven. Earlier Albany novels, including Ironweed, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, whetted our appetites. Now Very Old Bones treats us to one last look at the odd and turbulent Phelans, circa 1958. Stretching the boundaries of life as the Phelans know it, this powerful work flows back and forth in time, riding on the melody of its language. Its great theme is the promise of redemption for those who seek it.

The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Ironweed continues his acclaimed Albany Cycle with this tragicomic novel about a turbulent Irish-American family haunted by real and imagined sins. Dreamers, drinkers, and failures, their heartbreaks and prevailing sense of humor are at the core of what may be Kennedy's most accomplished work.

For William Kennedy fans, Albany conjures up a tapestry of great beauty and complexity in which the lives of an Irish American family are woven. Earlier Albany novels, including Ironweed, a Pulitzer Prize-winner, whetted our appetites. Now Very Old Bones treats us to one last look at the odd and turbulent Phelans, circa 1958.

Stretching the boundaries of life as the Phelans know it, this powerful work flows back and forth in time, riding on the melody of its language. Its great theme is the promise of redemption for those who seek it.

"The most mature and accomplished of Kennedy's works." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)

Publishers Weekly

This return to the pleasures of Kennedy's Albany cycle ( Billy Phelan's Greatest Game ; Ironweed ; etc.) is especially welcome after the comparative disappointment of Quinn's Book . The Pulitzer Prize winner is back in form with a complex but beautifully shaped saga revolving around the elderly scapegrace artist Peter Phelan's unveiling of a masterly series of paintings based on a 19th-century family tragedy. The event takes place at a rare get-together of the scattered and embittered Phelan-Quinn clan. Ancient loves are remembered, old passions rekindled and touching but never cloying reconciliations won--all seen through the eyes of Orson Purcell, Peter's bastard son, a confused writer who has fallen more than once into madness. Kennedy's crisp Irish American dialogue is a joy; his characters, particularly the sardonic Billy, the ravaged and virginal Sarah and the solid but endlessly surprising Molly, are brilliantly realized; and Orson's bursts of madness bring vivid gleams of fantasy. Bones offers the rare pleasure of a novel written with high literary skill that is a sometimes moving, often funny and always persuasive read. First serial to Playboy and Esquire; BOMC and QPB alternates. (Apr.)

William Kennedy

William Kennedy was born and raised in Albany, New York. He began his writing career as a journalist, and his novels have been translated into two dozen languages. His novel Ironweed won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.