Very Old Bones (Contemporary American Fiction),New

Riding on the melody of its language and the power of its story, Very Old Bones is a climatic work in the Albany Cycle from the Pultizer Prizewinning author of IronweedIt is 1958 and the Phelan clan has gathered to hear Peter Phelan's will. Peter was an artist whose paintings about members of the family have given him belated critical recognition. The paintings illuminate the lives of his brother Francis (the exiled hero of Ironweed), and a family ancestor, Malachi McIlhenny, a true madman beset by demons, and determined to send them back to hell.Orson Purcell, bastard son of Peter, encounters his first true solace through this obsessive and closeknit family he has never quite entered. It is through Orson's modern eye that we see the tragedies, obsessions, and clandestine joys of the singular Phelan family.William Kennedys Albany Cycle of novels reflect what he once described as the fusion of his imagination with a single place. A native and longtime resident of Albany, New York, his work moves from the midnineteenth to the midtwentieth century, chronicling family life, the citys netherworld, and its spheres of powerfinancial, ethnic, politicaloften among the IrishAmericans who dominated the city in this period. The novels in his cycle include, Legs, Billy Phelans Greatest Game, Ironweed, Quinns Book, Very Old Bones, The Flaming Corsage, and Roscoe.