Ironweed

The third novel in William Kennedy’s Albany Cycle series, Ironweed (1983) is set during the Great Depression. It follows Francis Phelan, a drifter from Albany, New York. After a devastating accident where he killed his child, he becomes a wandering alcoholic, but at the beginning of the novel has returned home. Detailing Francis’s life following his homecoming, Ironwood tells the tragic tale of a man haunted by his past. The striking novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1984 and was adapted into a film in 1987.

Author: William Kennedy

Publisher: Penguin Books

Released Date: 1983

ISBN: 0140070206