William Kennedy’s Big Book

Chango Beads and Two-Tone Shoes a novel by William Kennedy.  Viking.  326 pp.  *****

In an interview in mid-career, William Kennedy talked about his career as a journalist and his decision to begin writing fiction, and to concentrate on the city he had moved away from, but then returned to take care of his father.  Someone said to him, “’You don’t really know why you’re going back to Albany, but you’ll find out when you get there.’  And I did,” he said.

“I came across a note to myself from 1964 about writing this big book on Albany, long before I ever thought about such a thing as a cycle of novels. I didn’t know what it would be like and I didn’t have a model. But I wanted to take Albany through the ages and cover all the wars and the presidents and the railroads and the Erie Canal and the gangsters and all the immigration and the church and the wacko politics, and in my imagination it was a single book, which was absurd. When I came across that note I realized I’d forgotten totally how far back that idea went for me.”

To recapitulate: after a successful career as a journalist, Kennedy published his first novel in 1969, when he was 41, his first Albany novel in 1975.  The third of the Albany novels, Ironweed, came out in 1983, won the Pulitzer Prize, and made him famous.  Five novels would follow, the fifth—Chango Beads and Two-Tone Shoes—appearing in 2012, when he was 84.  In this novel, the journalist/novelist Daniel Quinn mentions that his own first novel, concerning a kidnapping in the gangster world and focusing on his gambler cousin, is about to be published.  Kennedy is clearly alluding to Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, thus identifying himself with Daniel Quinn (the second man in the series to have that name.  The first was the writer and adventurer in Quinn’s Book, someone with whom this Daniel Quinn clearly identifies).  Among other things he’s doing in Albany, Quinn is taking care of his father, who is funny and adorable but seriously demented.  (He is George Quinn, who married Peg Phelan, and thus became the brother-in-law of Francis Phelan, the protagonist of Ironweed, and the uncle of Billy Phelan.)

Kennedy is clearly having fun here.  But I would like to point out two things.  He actually did finish the gigantic work he envisioned in 1964.  It took him 48 years.  Even more startling, he was still producing complicated and riveting fiction at the age of 84.

I have huge admiration for this cycle of novels.  I’m sorry to see them come to an end.

I assume that, when you reach your early eighties, you have such nerve as a creator that you can do whatever you want.  This novel focuses on two periods of Daniel Quinn’s life: 1.) the days when he was working in Havana and met the woman he was soon to marry, in the presence of Ernest Hemingway (yes, Hemingway is a character in this novel, and gives Quinn some writing tips; he also fights a duel with a heckler and makes Quinn his second) and when he, subsequently makes the difficult trek to a Cuban jungle to interview—and smoke a cigar with—Fidel Castro; and 2) the day when Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in California, and the effects that had on the city of Albany.  If you’re thinking, why would Bobby Kennedy’s assassination have an effect on Albany, you weren’t around then.  That was an angry year, not long after Martin Luther King was assassinated and not long before the Democratic convention erupted into bloody riots.  The whole country was ready to boil over.

Soon after Quinn meets his future wife Renata, he realizes that, though she is an aristocrat, she is a part of the movement to overthrow Batista.  In fact, almost immediately, she is privy to a plot to storm the presidential palace and assassinate the man, making room for a new leader.  I for one (not knowing Cuban history) was convinced that attempt would succeed, as well plotted as it was, but it failed, largely because Batista had more firepower and wasn’t afraid to use it.  Renata was not part of the actual coup attempt, but she was a known associate of the people who attempted it (she was in love with one of the ringleaders, who was killed) and was a marked woman all over Havana.  Quinn—who had immediately fallen in love with her—was also in grave danger but seemed to have a devil may care attitude, inspired by his namesake and progenitor, who endured worse things.

I was stunned to hear how small a group Castro actually commanded.  There were revolutionaries all over the country, but his own group was just a handful of people.  I was also stunned, and impressed, by his understanding of the situation, and the careful strategy he had to employ (also by his knowledge of political and military theory and, for that matter, of literature.  He was a brilliant man.  William Kennedy actually met Castro, though much later in life; both men were friends of Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who got them together.  Castro seemed to have some knowledge of Kennedy’s work, but was more impressed to hear that he, like Billy Phelan, had once bowled a 299).

By the time we get to Albany in 1968—the second section of the novel—although that too is a tense situation, one of deep racial unrest, the feeling is more toned down.  It’s almost like old home week; we meet characters and connect them with those from past novels.  So this Daniel Quinn is the grandson of that other Daniel Quinn, also the son of George, who has appeared in various books.  A local priest, Matt Daugherty, has taken up the cause of poor black people, and finding them decent housing.  He’s the son of Martin Daugherty, the scorekeeper for Billy Phelan’s greatest game and an important go-between in that novel.  Martin himself makes a token appearance; he’s been in an assisted living facility sponsored by the city, but because of his son’s activism he’s been kicked out (the thugs who run the city are ruthless).  He and George Quinn recognize each other instantly (George is fine with people from the past.  It’s the present that has him confused).  And we feel right at home.  It’s like a family reunion.  Bring out the fried chicken and deviled eggs.

Kennedy has never been afraid to represent altered states.  In this novel he gives us the demented George Quinn, whom his son dropped at the Elks Club in the hope that he’d spend a few happy hours there, but George gets confused and wanders off through the streets of Albany, where he literally sees his life pass before him; he sees a bar and is convinced it is owned by someone who actually sold it 40 years ago.  This might be okay on a normal day, but on this day of religious and political unrest, it’s both terrifying and hilarious (Mr. Magoo visits the race riot).  He actually picks up a woman, an old friend named Vivan who knew his wife; she can see his condition but enjoys spending time with him.

I won’t detail how they wind up hanging around with a black alcoholic named Tremont who is being framed as a political assassin and who winds up shooting two men who were attacking a prostitute friend of his, then they all sit around in a whorehouse and have a few drinks with the women.  (Vivian is fascinated.  She “was asking how they liked their jobs and saying how difficult it must be to go with total strangers.  ‘We make friends pretty quick,’ one girl said.”)  The story gets to a place where, for a time, it’s nearly as nerve-wracking as the Cuban revolution.  But it’s more fun.

I can see how some people found this book not as tightly plotted as the earlier novels, and not quite up to the level of, let’s say, Ironweed.  But for a reader who’s enjoyed the whole series, it’s a perfect conclusion, and a coda to the whole work.

William Kennedy did write his big book.  He brought it out in eight volumes.

They would make two volumes in the Library of America.  They’re ready to go.

(The long quotation from Kennedy is from An Interview with William Kennedy by Edward Schwarzschild in The Believer, https://www.thebeliever.net/an-interview-with-william-kennedy/)