Billy Phelan's Greatest Game

Billy Phelan, a slightly tarnished poker player, pool hustler, and small-time bookie, moves through the lurid nighttime glare of a tough Depression-era town. A resourceful man full of Irish pluck, Billy works the fringes of Albany sporting life with his own particular style and private code of honor until he finds himself in the dangerous position of potential go-between in the kidnapping of a political boss's son. In relating Billy's fall from the underworld grace and his storybook redemption, Kennedy captures the seamy underside of a brassy, sweaty city that would prefer to pretend that the Depression doesn't exist.

William Kennedy was born and raised in Albany, New York. His Albany Cycle of novels is recognised as one of the great achievements of postwar American literature, and includes LEGS, BILLY PHELAN'S GREATEST GAME, IRONWEED, VERY OLD BONES, QUINN'S BOOK and the FLAMING CORSAGE.

Billy Phelan, a slightly tarnished poker player, pool hustler, and small-time bookie, moves through the lurid night-time glare of 1930s Albany. Deeply resourceful and scared of no one, Billy works the fringes of Albany's gambling scene with his own particular style and private code of honour - until he finds himself in the dangerous position of potential go-between in the kidnapping of a political boss's son. In relating Billy's fall from underworld grace and his subsequent redemption, Kennedy captures the seamy underside of a brassy, sweaty city that would prefer to pretend that the Depression doesn't exist. Billy Phelan's Greatest Game is part of William Kennedy's Albany cycle, the cult series of novels set in the seedy underbelly of a vividly reimagined Albany, New York. 'The reader will follow him almost anywhere, to the edge of tragedy and back to redemption.' Wall Street Journal 'Kennedy's art is an eccentric triumph, a quirky, risk-taking imagination at play upon the solid paving stones, the breweries, the politicos and pool sharks of an all-too-actual city' The New York Review of Books

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