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William Kennedy's <i>Ironweed</i>

Francis Phelan is a man who believes his own hands have betrayed and destroyed him. He lives in an Albany peopled by ghosts, notably his son, Gerald's, dead 13 days after birth from the broken neck sustained in falling from his father's hands to the floor. And yet Phelan, the eloquent, violent, dissembling bum hero of William Kennedy's great novel<em> Ironweed,</em> is the master of these hands.

Posted by Arlo Haskell on July 4, 2008 2:02 PM