O Albany!

Praise for William Kennedy

“[A]mong the most exuberant literary feats of the past half-century.” — Colum McCann

“Kennedy’s justly acclaimed Albany Cycle [is] one of the imperishable products of American literature since the Second World War. These books can be read singly or in sequence, but read they must be. Kennedy is one of our necessary writers.”—GQ

“Kennedy’s novels have the rough feel of stories told, not of chapters written and artfully polished. His beguiling yarns are the kind of family myths embellished and retold across a kitchen table late at night, whiskified, raunchy, darkly funny, tangles of old resentments and fresh exasperations.”—TIME

“Kennedy’s prose is swift and glib, intent upon creating sparks and surprises, and fully open to life’s magical touches, its haunts and ghostly discoveries.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Kennedy is a writer with something to say, about matters that touch us all, and he does it with uncommon artistry.”—The Washington Post

“William Kennedy writes so melodiously about the Irish ruffians of old Albany, NY he could make Philip Roth wish he were Catholic.”—San Francisco Chronicle

“Kennedy has maintained a high level of achievement throughout [his Albany Cycle], deftly blending comedy and drama as, over the years, he has painted a portrait of a single city perhaps unique in American fiction.”—The Washington Post

“Kennedy has made Albany his, as Dickens made London and Proust Paris and Chandler Los Angeles….One of the finest living American novelists.”—Thomas Flanagan