![]() ![]() ![]() And he'd done it with unique - or at least overlooked - literary territory: Albany, N.Y. After 30-plus years, Kennedy was not only in good company, he was in the big leagues. It was the kind of transformation - the decades-long overnight success story - seen in the careers of Anne Tyler, D.M. That's the tale behind William Kennedy's ``Ironweed,'' a novel whose publication earned for its then-unknown author all the right notices: the Pulitzer Prize, a MacArthur ``genius'' grant, the big-budget movie adaptation. That is, until Nobel laureate Saul Bellow gave New York publishers a tongue-lashing that shamed the original house, Viking, into giving the book the green light and - more important - getting behind it. All of it duly recorded via ``Sixty Minutes.'' The 13 rejection slips for the fourth novel - the first three already out of print. Or at least legendary gossip about New York publishers. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |