Roscoe
|
A political boss with a heart of goldREVIEW BY ARLENE MCKANIC The cover of William Kennedy's latest novel in his Albany cycle says it all. Six men stride jauntily toward us, some with their arms linked, all smiling and boater-hatted, giving the impression that the world is their oyster. Such is true for Kennedy's hero, Roscoe Conway, a fat, bearded, cheerfully corrupt pol (think Boss Tweed) in the era after World War II. So pervasive is Roscoe's power that there's not a judge, cop or elected official in the city who's not in his pocket. After he punches out the editor of a local scandal sheet for daring to print innuendo about his dead friend, he even tells the judge when to convene the trial and what bail to set. Yet there's something honorable about Roscoe. He has pined for his friend Elisha Fitzgibbon's beautiful Irish-German wife Veronica (think Grace Kelly) for decades. After Elisha's suicide, Roscoe, corpulent knight in tarnished armor, goes out of his way to protect and woo her. He makes sure the autopsy report lists natural causes for Elisha's demise; represents Veronica in a lawsuit when her rapacious sister, Roscoe's ex-wife, sues her for custody of the son she gave to Veronica at birth; and works to get Veronica's son re-elected as Albany's mayor. On top of all this we have rigged cockfighting, murder, ornate brothels and other garden varieties of depravity. Kennedy's Albany, which looks like a quiet and dignified burg to outsiders, might as well be Babylon. Kennedy, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Ironweed, writes with a zinging, noirish wit and dark humor appropriate to a book about people who live comfortably with vice. He also writes with compassion; the love story of Veronica and Roscoe is genuinely moving, and -- since they're both middle-aged -- hopeful. The narrative moves seamlessly from the present to Roscoe's crooked but entertaining past, and Kennedy's supporting characters are, like his talent, colorful. Most of his women are classic broads, tough, curvaceous, sexy and essentially good-hearted, while his men are not so admirable. Roscoe is basically good, but who in his circle of miscreants needs to know that? Roscoe is an absorbing book, sinewy, funny and ornery as a bantam rooster. Arlene McKanic is a writer in Jamaica, New York.
|
