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Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed

Ironweed

by William Kennedy

1983

Novel

Historical, Regionalist

Former baseball player, Francis Phelan has spent the past twenty-two years running from the ghosts of his past—the ghosts of the men he has killed, of the thirteen-day-old infant who slipped from his hands and died, of the women he has loved. He is a “lost and distorted soul…too profane…humbl[ing] himself willfully through the years to counter a fearful pride in his own ability to manufacture the glory from which grace would flow.”

Some might conclude that Francis Phelan is a bum by choice. He has a home, an understanding and compassionate wife, and children who love him. But he is driven away by demons, perhaps of his own making. He was a talented baseball player with the Albany Senators. He had a job working on the trolleys. But, two events (twenty-two years earlier) have him on the run: he dropped and killed his infant son, and he killed a “scab” during a trolley workers' strike. He takes up a vagabond's life, running from the ghosts that follow him, literally, as he holds whole conversations with them, treating them like old friends. He is not a man in obvious pain. Hero and anti-hero alike, Francis is compassionate toward those less fortunate than he, but he can't seem to take care of himself, and killing follows in his wake.

The story line has Francis returning to his former home, Albany, New York, to face charges of fraud after he registers as a Democrat twenty-one times, earning five dollars each time. Over the course of three days, Francis meets up with old friends and other street bums. In particular, he finds Helen, his partner of nine years, who is dying from a malignant tumor. Helen's story is likewise tragic, though she hasn't had the love that Francis has. Francis is resourceful, and earns some money doing odd jobs, in an effort to keep himself and Helen fed and out of the cold.

Ironweed is a study of street life in depression-era Albany, NY. The street code of love and responsibility is different from that of civilized life. Love can only be acted on, never spoken, just as kinship is an attitude rather than a familial imperative. Francis' children and wife are more strangers to him than the street bums with whom he shares a sandwich.

Running is a major theme in the novel. The narrator explains that “Francis began to run, and in so doing, reconstituted a condition that was as pleasurable to his being as it was natural: the running of bases… the running from accusation, the running from the calumny of men and women, the running from family, from bondage, from destitution of spirit… He had stood staunchly irresolute in the face of capricious and adverse fate. (75) The end of his story is ambiguous. Has he actually stopped running, or is a settled life with his family and home just another flight of fancy?

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Kennedy, William. "Ironweed." Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed, edited by Editors of Salem Press, Salem Press, 2015. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=6CR_0263.
APA 7th
Kennedy, W. (2015). Ironweed. In E. Salem Press (Ed.), Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Kennedy, William. "Ironweed." Edited by Editors of Salem Press. Recommended Reading: 600 Classics Reviewed. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2015. Accessed September 15, 2025. online.salempress.com.