The Flaming Corsage - Softcover

Kennedy, William J.

3.56

315 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0140242708 ISBN 13: 9780140242706

Publisher: Penguin Books, 1997

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Moving back and forth between the 1880s and 1912, this sixth novel in William Kennedy’s acclaimed Albany cycle follows the lives of Edward Daugherty, a first generation Irish American who will break out beyond Albany as a playwright, and Katrina Taylor, a beautiful, seductive woman with complex attitudes towards life. Their marriage is a passionate one, but a cataclysmic hotel fire changes it into something else altogether. The Flaming Corsage evocatively portrays the seething, contradictory impulses of our humanity, lusts and furies that know no bounds of time or place.

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Review:

Kennedy has won a large and loyal following, but you don't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool Kennedy fan to enjoy this latest addition to the famous Albany cycle of novels -- from whence come the likes of Ironweed, his Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award winner. The Flaming Corsage is a return to the same place, different time. Bouncing back and forth from 1884 to 1912, Kennedy's story is of wealth and class in Albany; his prose is at once moodily atmospheric and refreshingly clear -- an utter pleasure to read. The book is a historical novel, yet feels perfectly modern, and perfectly entertaining.

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.

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