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Billy Phelan's Greatest Game [Paperback]

William Kennedy
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)

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Book Description

January 27, 1983
Billy Phelan, small-time bookie, pool hustler, and poker player becomes an unlikely go-between in the 1938 kidnapping of an Albany political boss's son.

Frequently Bought Together

Billy Phelan's Greatest Game + Legs + Ironweed: A Novel
Price for all three: $35.20

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  • Legs $10.97
  • Ironweed: A Novel $11.63

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Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

6 1.5-hour cassettes --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

William Kennedy, author, screenwriter and playwright, was born and raised in Albany, New York. Kennedy brought his native city to literary life in many of his works. The Albany cycle, includes Legs, Billy Phelan's Greatest Game, and the Pulitzer Prize winning Ironweed. The versatile Kennedy wrote the screenplay for Ironweed, the play Grand View, and cowrote the screenplay for the The Cotton Club with Francis Ford Coppola. Kennedy also wrote the nonfiction O Albany! and Riding the Yellow Trolley Car. Some of the other works he is known for include Roscoe and Very Old Bones.

Kennedy is a professor in the English department at the State University of New York at Albany. He is the founding director of the New York State Writers Institute and, in 1993, was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has received numerous literary awards, including the Literary Lions Award from the New York Public Library, a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and a Governor’s Arts Award. Kennedy was also named Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters in France and a member of the board of directors of the New York State Council for the Humanities.


Product Details

  • Paperback: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Penguin Books (January 27, 1983)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0140063404
  • ISBN-13: 978-0140063400
  • Product Dimensions: 5 x 0.5 x 7.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #161,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
(8)
4.4 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars I'll lay 1-9 odds that you'll like this book. March 17, 2004
Format:Paperback
"Billy Phelan's Greatest Game" by William Kennedy is a mesmerizing, hysterical, and suspenseful romp through Depression-era Albany. Read the first chapter, where Billy bowls someone "to death", and I seriously doubt that you will put the book down. Billy is one of the most memorable characters in William Kennedy's galaxy, moreso than Francis Phelan in my book. Billy is a risk-taker, a guy whose heart is in the right place, and a rough-and-tumble sort that relies on his confidence in the midst of trouble. And these are the qualities that make him the inevitable, although unwilling, middle-man in a kidnapping negotiation.

Billy's world of gamblers, drinkers, sharks, corrupt Albany lackies, and broken families is dark and smoky but never despairing or hopeless. And Billy's moral calculus is a bright spot in this otherwise bleak setting. For my money, "Billy Phelan's Greatest Game" is the best of three in the Albany cycle. I found "Legs" to be slow-going and lacking focus. "Ironweed" is a sensational book, a close second to this novel, but its plot of two drinkers going from job to job, joint to joint, drink to drink does begin to wear down. "Billy Phelan's Greatest Game" has a good deal of plot tension, moral conflicts, humor, and a wider array of characters. I'm in the minority here, and that's fine, but in my analysis it's
WIN: (by a nose)"Billy Phelan's Greatest Game"
PLACE: "Ironweed"
SHOW: "Legs"

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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars favorite kennedy trip May 3, 1999
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Billy Phelan is my fave of the great Kennedys' books. Billy is a fun guy to roam about with, listen to, learn from and even be inspired by. He is a great pool shooter, decent poker player, half-ass bookie and lovely raconteur.He takes the world as it comes and dives in to any and all of it with gusto and guts.Kennedy tosses in illustrative examples of the magic in daily life and the importance of being able to bounce back from those inevitable moments of (temporary!) defeat. All this told in Kennedys fine voice, a voice like that of a chain-smoking angel who can tell a snappy joke or a dazzling blue stretcher. What fun.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars man about town April 20, 2002
Format:Paperback
Billy Phelan, son of long gone Francis (Ironweed) has become a "man about town" on the streets of Albany. A snappy dresser, willing to participate in, or bet on, any game in town, has found himself caught up in a kidnapping. This isn't just another game and Billy must play the game of his life for his life.Again Kennedy has the talent to make his wide variety of characters true. My advice is to read this book before Flaming Corsage. The whole cast is there.
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