Kennedy’s Albany novel “Ironweed” came out in 1983. It is probably his best-known book. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for it and they made it into a major motion picture. Kennedy is now 83 years old and he just published “Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes.”
This is his eighth book in his “Albany Cycle.” It was also a long time coming. The previous book, “Roscoe,” came out in 2002. While much of this book takes place in Albany, we are also treated to an exotic road trip. The book opens in Albany in 1936. A young boy, Daniel Quinn, observes the singer Bing Crosby dropping by for drinks and a song with Quinn’s father.
Following this brief prologue, we are transported to Havana, Cuba. The year is 1957 and Quinn is now a journalist hoping for a big scoop while Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries are plotting the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship.
The writer Ernest Hemingway was living in Cuba during the final years of his life. Quinn encounters him in one of Hem’s legendary hangouts. At the same time Quinn notices a beautiful Cuban woman named Renata. He falls for her instantly.
Renata has a complicated love life. Through Renata Quinn becomes entangled in a wild web of intrigue involving gun smugglers, gangsters and a daring newspaper editor who is willing to send Quinn into the mountains to try to obtain an interview with Fidel.
The second half of the book takes place in Albany on June 5, 1968, the day that Sen. Robert F. Kennedy has been mortally wounded while campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination in California. Quinn is now rather unhappily married to Renata. Kennedy writes that “Renata had been leaving Quinn for years, but not yet, and not for anyone; though there were two or three in waiting ... .”
Quinn is still a reporter. Albany is in the throes of racial unrest. Violence is escalating. Meanwhile, the corrupt Democratic political machine that has ruled the city for decades is trying to manipulate the unrest to fulfill some devious schemes.
Quinn’s 81-year-old father, George, provides a sweet sense of nostalgia, which is the saving grace of this novel. George walks the streets of his memories. He dances. He recalls all the wonderful people and places he used to know as Molotov cocktails explode. George sings one lovely Jazz Age tune after another.
Kennedy is writing about what he knows so well — Albany. As a reporter, he covered the Cuban Revolution. Later, as a journalist at the Albany Times Union, he reported on the street violence that took place in Albany in 1968. If this is the final novel in his “Albany Cycle,” it is his masterpiece, and a fitting capstone for a career of monumental literary achievement.
Vick Mickunas of Yellow Springs interviews authors every Friday at 1:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 11 a.m. on WYSO-FM (91.3). For more information, visit www.wyso.org/programs/book-nook. Contact him at vick@vickmickunas.com.
About the Author