A review by tompizza1022
Billy Phelan's Greatest Game by William Kennedy

4.0

The first William Kennedy book I read since Ironweed long ago, this was in response to seeing the Albany icon speak and show a documentary on Albany during the prohibition era (more so a biography of famed bootlegger Legs Diamond). Billy Phelan's Greatest Game is an entertaining read. A story with two main focuses, one being the well known fictional Albany hustler Billy Phelan, and the other following an older newspaper editor who is trying to lightly traverse a kidnapping of the son of a powerful Albany political family (the McCalls). Unfortunately, the kidnapping story is rather weak and less then engaging throughout. But, this story is more about the characters, the city, and the beautiful ways in which Kennedy brings both to life. Phelan is a lost soul looking for his place in a town full of miscreants, political deviants, whores, and bums. He's well known as a pool, poker, and general parlor game hustler, and those passages are vividly told bringing the scenes and the city to life as Phelan interacts with Albany folk of all kinds. He befriends bartenders, neighbors, and bums all while learning of why his baseball hero father abandoned his family at such a young age. Billy eventually begins to work with friend and neighbor Martin Daugherty (the newsman mentioned above), as the two attempt to delicately solve the kidnapping case without angering the political bosses or their misinformed friends. It's a good read, and as a current Albanian, one that describes the city in a different light as to which it is now seen. Kennedy's prose about and passion for the city of Albany are unmistakable.