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saavedra77I’ve been reading William Kennedy's novel Roscoe:
If you’re not familiar with Kennedy, most of his novels take place in Irish-Catholic Albany during the '30s & '40s. His characters range from rough around the edges, like pool shark Billy Phelan in Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game & Billy's wayward old man Francis in Ironweed, to downright predatory, like celebrity gangster Legs Diamond in Legs & Roscoe's merrily crooked politicians ...
Roscoe’s protagonist is a lawyer attached to Albany’s 1940s Democratic political machine. Kennedy says of the character that “Roscoe was spiritually illegal, a bootlegger of the soul, a mythic creature made of words and wit and wild deeds and boundless memory.” Roscoe says of himself “As I am incapable of telling the truth ... so I am incapable of lying, which is, as we all know, the secret of the truly successful politician.”
The political machine that Roscoe serves is a mainly ethnic enterprise, a vehicle that’s enabled a newly-minted Irish elite to displace an older, W.A.S.P. one. Roscoe’s dad, an old party boss, explains early-on how the Albany machine now stays in power:
“Never stop a ward leader from stealing; it’s what keeps him honest.”
“Make friends with millionaires and give ‘em what they need.”
And, in defense of collecting votes in the cemetary:
“Just because they’re dead don’t mean they’re Republicans.”
Roscoe’s many roles in the party machine include collecting kickbacks, keeping his cronies out of jail, & keeping their problems out of the newspapers. So he functions as a sort of combination bag-man, mob lawyer, & spin doctor.
Roscoe may be a scoundrel for a living, but Kennedy has a way of getting you into the heads of people you might not otherwise admire or care for: Roscoe is also witty, playful, & surprisingly loyal to his cronies. He’s got body-image issues. Plus he’s quietly, unrequitedly, pathetically in love with his best friend’s girl ....
Roscoe is redolent with noirish moral ambiguity, features a mysterious suicide & the inevitable double-cross, but it's not a thriller; like Kennedy's other Albany novels, Roscoe is an elegy to the kind of place Shane MacGowan had in mind in the song "White City": a "sweet city ... of speed & skill & schemes ..." that's long since "disappeared from view."
If you’re not familiar with Kennedy, most of his novels take place in Irish-Catholic Albany during the '30s & '40s. His characters range from rough around the edges, like pool shark Billy Phelan in Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game & Billy's wayward old man Francis in Ironweed, to downright predatory, like celebrity gangster Legs Diamond in Legs & Roscoe's merrily crooked politicians ...
Roscoe’s protagonist is a lawyer attached to Albany’s 1940s Democratic political machine. Kennedy says of the character that “Roscoe was spiritually illegal, a bootlegger of the soul, a mythic creature made of words and wit and wild deeds and boundless memory.” Roscoe says of himself “As I am incapable of telling the truth ... so I am incapable of lying, which is, as we all know, the secret of the truly successful politician.”
The political machine that Roscoe serves is a mainly ethnic enterprise, a vehicle that’s enabled a newly-minted Irish elite to displace an older, W.A.S.P. one. Roscoe’s dad, an old party boss, explains early-on how the Albany machine now stays in power:
“Never stop a ward leader from stealing; it’s what keeps him honest.”
“Make friends with millionaires and give ‘em what they need.”
And, in defense of collecting votes in the cemetary:
“Just because they’re dead don’t mean they’re Republicans.”
Roscoe’s many roles in the party machine include collecting kickbacks, keeping his cronies out of jail, & keeping their problems out of the newspapers. So he functions as a sort of combination bag-man, mob lawyer, & spin doctor.
Roscoe may be a scoundrel for a living, but Kennedy has a way of getting you into the heads of people you might not otherwise admire or care for: Roscoe is also witty, playful, & surprisingly loyal to his cronies. He’s got body-image issues. Plus he’s quietly, unrequitedly, pathetically in love with his best friend’s girl ....
Roscoe is redolent with noirish moral ambiguity, features a mysterious suicide & the inevitable double-cross, but it's not a thriller; like Kennedy's other Albany novels, Roscoe is an elegy to the kind of place Shane MacGowan had in mind in the song "White City": a "sweet city ... of speed & skill & schemes ..." that's long since "disappeared from view."
