Reviews for Ironweed

The average rating for Ironweed based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-01-26 00:00:00 Scott Simmons Ironweed is the third book of William Kennedy's Albany series which focuses on the character Francis Phelan, father of the protagonist of his previous book Billy Phelan's Greatest Game and referring at times to events in the first book of this series, Legs. It won the Pulitzer in 1984 beating out Cathedral by Raymond Carver and The Feud by Thomas Berger, neither of which I have read yet. I think it was an unusual choice for the committee, and actually preferred Billy Phelan's Greatest Game. Nonetheless, it was a great read. The book is almost entirely written from Francis' perspective - through his own neuroses and alcholic hazes, with hallucinations and sudden mood changes. For all of that, Franny is an interesting character that reminds me of an uncle of mine that passed a few years ago. It starts with Francis going into the family cemetery as a grave digger, passing - not without some significance - the graves of his parents and the child he inadvertently killed when it slipped out of a loose diaper and broke its neck. This small pieces of insight are what build our sympathy with the protagonist. It is best to have read Billy Phelan's Greatest Game to get the context for how Billy views this event and his encounter with Helen in order to fully appreciate the narrative here. Nobody quite describes life underneath society - whether that of gamblers or of gangsters or of bums - quite like Kennedy. It is most likely that precisely which earned him the Pulitzer for this book. The prose can be evocative and powerful in passages such as this when Francis looks back at his own conception: She closed her eyes and feel back on the wedding bed like a corpse, ready to receive the thrust, and the old man's impeccable blood shot into her aged vessel with a passionate burst that sset her writhing with the life of newley conceived death. Francis watched this primal pool of his own soulish body squirm into burgeoning matter, saw it change and grow with the speed of light until it was the size of an infant, saw it yanked out by his father, who straightened him, slapped him, into being, and swiftly molded him into a bestial weed. The body sprouted to wildly matured growth and stood fully clad at last in the very clothes Francis was now wearing. He recognized the toothless mouth, the absent finger joints, the bump on the nose, the mortal slouch of his newborn shade, and he knew then that he would be this decayed self he had been so long in becoming, though all the endless years of his death. (p. 99) Francis was born in an atmosphere of neglect and horror of pleasure and repulsion for sex and this colored his entire existence. There is a certain fatalism in Kennedy's writing. I saw on a poster in the metro for an association for aiding the poor that on average, it takes six generations for a family to rise out of poverty. I get the feeling that Kennedy would find even that number somewhat optimistic. When we see the characters that populate his books, there seems to be a laid-in complacency, a lazy acceptance of mediocrity. Characters that buck this system are brutally beaten down or merely ignored and forgotten. That being said, there is a redeeming message underneath that of love that a vision of his mother who died in a house fire transmits to him: And then the woman interposed herself in his life, hiding herself in the deepest center of the flames, smiling at him with all the lewd beauty of her dreams; and she awakened in him the urge for a love of his own, a love that belonged to no other man, a love he would never have to share with any man, or boy, like himself. (p. 116) Even more importantly, even if it does not improve the economics, there is a reckoning and a sea change that operates in Francis despite his initial reticence: Everything was easier than coming home, even reducing yourself to the level of social maggot, streetside slug. But then he came home. (p. 160) Abandoning Helen, Francis overcomes his self-hate and is able to reconcile with his past. I felt tearful when he went up to the attic and looked at the remnants of his previous life (p. 168) Despite preferring the previous book, I truly did enjoy this one for the great writing and the story of redemption which did not stoop to empty sentimentalism, but rather shows Francis dealing with his own sins on his own terms. My rating of all the Pulitzer Winners:

Review # 2 was written on 2013-01-30 00:00:00 CJ Johnson Treasure of the Rubbermaids 19: Big Rock Candy Mountain The on-going discoveries of priceless books and comics found in a stack of Rubbermaid containers previously stored and forgotten at my parent's house and untouched for almost 20 years. Thanks to my father dumping them back on me, I now spend my spare time unearthing lost treasures from their plastic depths. Francis Phelan is living the romantic life of a hobo during the Great Depression. Drifting from town to town by hopping trains and with no responsibilities to tie him down, Francis enjoys the company of his fellow bums as they share cans of beans and jugs of wine. OK, that's bullshit. Any notions of the hobo lifestyle having some kind of appeal are dealt with quickly and brutally here. Francis's existence is a daily grind of trying to avoid freezing or starving to death, and a hobo's corpse quickly becomes food for wild dogs. With few teeth left in his head and a simple shoestring being beyond his means, Francis dispels the myth of the carefree hobo. Particularly cringe worthy is a scene in which he is trying to take advantage of a visit to a friend's apartment by cleaning himself up and his underwear falls to pieces when he tries to wash them in the sink. Think about how skeevy those drawers had to be and tell me you want to hang out by the campfire under the bridge. Francis is also dealing with a fair amount of guilt. He hit the rails the first time after killing a scab during a strike, and while he eventually came home after that incident, another tragic turn sent him on the bum for good when Francis dropped his infant son who broke his neck in the fall. (Way to go, butterfingers!) His life as a hobo added to his regrets as the rough existence of a drifter forced him to kill others along the way. As a wise man once sang: Nothing beats the hobo life Stabbing folks with my hobo knife Back in his old home town of Albany, Francis is stuck trying to work off a debt to a lawyer and dealing with the many ghosts that his past has haunted him with. He's also trying to look out for his hobo girlfriend Helen and his buddy Rudy. Running into his grown sons provides the shocking realization that his family doesn't hold a grudge for him abandoning them, but can Francis ever forgive himself? Francis story is sad and compelling, and he's an interesting character. He makes no excuses for the things he's done or how he lives. Despite his capacity for violence, he doesn't look for trouble. He's generous with what little he has as well as compassionate. He's got a kind of cheerful pragmatism despite the regrets he has. The story of Francis makes this worth checking out, and it's certainly well written, but I'm a little shocked that it won a Pulitzer. It seems very good, but not at a level of greatness that kind of prize would indicate.