Ironweed

Rating:
Summary: Life on the Street
Review: Very good novel detailing the travails of a homeless alcoholic. The story, set in the thirties, is as true today as it was then. Gerald Phelan's violent nature and the accidental death of his infant son, cause him to hit the road. He returns to his hometown years later and begins a life for himself on the streets. Sometimes working and sometimes sober, Gerald is haunted by apparitions of friends and enemies, long dead. Gerald's companion, Helen, is a former musician who fled to the street after a series of disappointments. They survive with all the other homeless eating at missions and sleeping in flop houses, old cars, seedy hotels, or cardboard boxes.

When Gerald pays a visit to his family, he is amazed to discover that they would forgive his past and welcome him home.

Kennedy's novel grittily describes the brutality and ugliness of life and survival on the streets. It also gives insight as to why both Gerald and Helen fell so far.

Rating:
Summary: Great fiction
Review: A thin novel, yes, but a very deep and rich and satisfying one. The story is compelling and moving while literary allusions blend right in, adding a wonderful surreal quality to the often gritty action. On some levels, magic realism is definitely at work here (try to compare the Albany Cycle with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude." It's interesting). A splendidly written work.

Rating:
Summary: It stands up
Review: I read this book for the first time over 10 years ago. It still haunts me. Buy it if you haven't yet, read it again if you have.

Rating:
Summary: One of the most moving books I've ever read.
Review: A magical, hypnotic, painful book, made even more rich by the depth of understanding you can get by reading "Billy Phelan's Greatest Game" first. Several of the characters are in both, and several plot points from the earlier novel enhance the tapestry of "Ironweed." This is a great novel, one that I will treasure forever.

Rating:
Summary: A true American masterpiece
Review: This is one of those books like "Huck Finn" and "Catcher in the Rye" that they'll still be reading decades from now. BRAVO!

Rating:
Summary: Bravo!
Review: What a wonderfully written novel this is! Not a big novel atall, but one that is deep and rich and incredibly rewarding. Thereare elements of magic realism lingering below the surface that pop up here and there, as well as some wonderful allusions to Dante. There's a lot here. Read it, and then read it again.

And PS: for those of you whiners who were "forced" to read this book, or any book: no one is ever "forced" to read anything. Suck it up and open up your minds a little. You might learn something.

Rating:
Summary: My favorite book of all-time
Review: Ironweed introduced to me the glorious possibility and power of the novel. Francis Phelan's story is not simply that of an Albany bum, but the story of anyone who has ever felt guilt or pain about the past. Kennedy uses the English language like a concert pianist at Carnegie Hall. The book is thought-provoking and complex.

Rating:
Summary: Terrible Book
Review: WHAT A WASTE OF MY TIME! I had to read Ironweed. I admit that the beginning was horribly slow, but I had faith that things would pick up. Boy was I wrong. This was a horrible book, and if you have to read it, may God have mercy on your soul.

Rating:
Summary: Illustrative of family pain half-forgotten, fully felt
Review: This was the first book to show me what traumatic personal events in the story of immigration to America might have brought on the deep, collective sorrow that runs, unexplained, through my working-class background. No one in my family can discuss the particular incidents, for as they happened they were deliberately ignored.

Of Kennedy's many achievements in "Ironweed" I'm most impressed by these two: the archaeology of our heritage of private suffering, and the poetry of our inarticulate ancestors. First person accounts of the isolated lives of the hapless poor are more than rare. Kennedy is well-educated in the history of his native Albany, and with threads of this great story he weaves Francis Phelan's humble tale. It is a lyric ballad for the poor souls who managed to bring children (like my grandparents) into this harsh, new world before meeting their unceremonious ends. In isolated moments of grace and dignity, Kennedy brings flickers of indelicate humor, intense beauty and slangy sweetness.

Rating:
Summary: Good Book!
Review: Kennedy chooses an interesting topic of a hard-luck guy coping with his past. An honest look at surviving with today's problems and yesterday's skeletons. Not the quickest of stories, but not as slow as Joyce!