Albany Cycle

In 1849, a boy saves a girl from the Hudson River in this story "of wonders and sweetness, magic and horrors {that} immerses itself in the marvelous" (The Boston Sunday Globe). A penniless Irish orphan, Daniel Quinn is among the crowds gathered at the Hudson River in Albany to watch a legendary dancer aboard the ferry. But when the boat strikes the ice that chokes the water on this wintry day, awe turns to terror. Though the dancer's life is lost, Daniel risks his neck and rescues her niece, Maud Fallon. But just as he's falling in love with the beautiful, passionate girl, she's snatched away from him. As the years pass and Daniel continues his quest for the beguiling Maud, he will witness the rise and fall of great dynasties in upstate New York, epochal prize fights, the exotic world of the theater, visitations from spirits beyond the grave, horrific battles between Irish immigrants and the Know-Nothings, the New York draft riots, the perils of the Underground Railroad, and the bloody despair of the Civil War. Rich with nineteenth-century history and filled with flourishes of humor and magical realism, this is an "engrossing and eerily profound" novel (Time) from an author who, in the words of Stephen King, "writes with verve and nerve {and} paints a full and lively canvas." In the tradition of E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate or Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale, it is a remarkable saga from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Ironweed.

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning author: The novel of an Irish-American clan whose exploits changed Albany forever. When it was built, the Phelan mansion was the only home on the block. In the decades since, countless tragedies have swept through its rambling halls, but no matter how many times its foundations have been rocked, the old house still stands. Now, in 1958, its sole occupants are the eccentric old painter Peter Phelan and his illegitimate son, Orson, who sees all-but says nothing. When Peter invites his remaining family to hear him read his will aloud, it forces the Phelan clan to reckon with the most powerful force in Albany: their own tortured history. Unveiling a series of portraits inspired by family tragedy, Peter takes the Phelans back into the past, as far as 1887, forcing them to come face-to-face with the origins of the family curse. As the raucous narrative unfolds, Orson does his best to grapple with his roots, and the knowledge that the sins of the past can never truly be washed away. William Kennedy's eight-book Albany Cycle is one of the most ambitious projects in modern historical fiction, a kaleidoscopic portrait of a city whose heroes are its corrupt politicians, conmen, and thieves. The Phelans are one of the roughest families in American literature, and also one of the greatest.