Background
William Joseph was born on the 16th of January, 1928 in Albany, New York, United States, the son of William Joseph and Mary Elizabeth (McDonald) Kennedy.
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("Kennedy writes with verve and nerve. His wit, always sha...)
"Kennedy writes with verve and nerve. His wit, always sharp, has rarely been sharper. He paints a full and lively canvas... Quinns Book casts a lovely light, indeed." -- Stephen King From the moment he rescues the beautiful, passionate Maud Fallon from the icy waters of the Hudson one wintry day in 1849, Daniel Quinn, a twelve-year-old orphan, is thrust into a bewildering, adventure-filled journey through the tumult of nineteenth-century America. As he quests after the beguiling and elusive Maud (shes fourteen), Daniel will witness the rise and fall of great dynasties in upstate New York, epochal prize fights, exotic life in the theater, visitations from spirits beyond the grave, horrific battles between Irish immigrants and the "Know-Nothings," the vicious New York draft riots, heroic passages through the Underground Railroad, and the bloody despair of the Civil War. Filled with Dickensian characters, a vivid sense of history, and marvelously inventive humor, Quinns Book is an engaging delight by a modern master. "Engrossing and eerily profound." -- Time "Our history comes to us, grandiloquent and ennobled, translated by Kennedy back into a language of the heart." -- San Francisco Chronicle
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(A study of the author's Albany, NY novels. These novels a...)
A study of the author's Albany, NY novels. These novels are structured by the heroic quest of a character or characters into the past in order to resurrect, redeem, and purify the past.
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William Joseph was born on the 16th of January, 1928 in Albany, New York, United States, the son of William Joseph and Mary Elizabeth (McDonald) Kennedy.
William attended Public School 20 and Christian Brothers Academy. Kennedy studied at Siena College in Loudonville, New York, from which he graduated in 1949.
Kennedy began pursuing a career in journalism after college by joining the Post Star in Glens Falls as a sports reporter. He was drafted in 1950 and served in the US Army, where he worked for an Army newspaper in Europe. After his discharge, Kennedy joined the Albany Times Union as a reporter. He then relocated to Puerto Rico in 1956 and became managing editor of the San Juan Star, a new English language newspaper. While living in San Juan, he befriended the journalist and author Hunter S. Thompson, a friendship that continued throughout their careers.
While in Puerto Rico Kennedy also met his mentor, Saul Bellow, who encouraged him to write novels. Kennedy, who had been eager to leave Albany, returned to his hometown and worked for the Albany newspaper the Times Union as an investigative journalist, writing stories exposing activities of Daniel P. O'Connell and his political cronies of the dominant Democratic Party.
Kennedy lectured in creative writing and journalism from 1974 to 1982 at the University at Albany, becoming a full professor in 1983. He taught writing as a visiting professor at Cornell University during the 1982–1983 academic year.
Kennedy has received numerous honorary degrees, and was presented with the inaugural SUNY Medallion of Distinction in May 2012 by the Chancellor of the State University of New York, and so joined the ranks of the SUNY Distinguished Academy as a board-appointed Distinguished Professor.
Kennedy received the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for his novel Ironweed. He also won the National Book Critics Circle Award. In 2001, he received the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award from the Tulsa Library Trust.
William Kennedy received the Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature award in 2007, which is given annually in Rockville, Maryland where F. Scott Fitzgerald, his wife, and his daughter are buried.
(A study of the author's Albany, NY novels. These novels a...)
("Kennedy writes with verve and nerve. His wit, always sha...)
Kennedy was raised a Catholic.
Kennedy is married to Dana Daisy Segarra. They have three children, Dana Elizabeth, Katherine Anne, Brendan Christopher.
