Requiem for Client 9

I finished Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game for perhaps the fifth time. When I chucked the 1.5 thousand books to the SF library 5 years ago, it was the only William Kennedy book I kept, and I maintain it’s his best.

BPGG is the true first of the Albany Cycle, which introduces the Daugherty and Phelan clans, the most hilarious and saddest of families in modern literature. Martin Daugherty is a local celeb columnist for the Hearst paper, and he’s a gadfly about nighttown Albany, both at once secure with his position and living in the shadow of his famous father, playwright Edward, who is in an old folks home as this book kicks off. He’s also guilty of carrying a torch and later balling his father’s former mistress Melissa, worries of his son gone to the seminary, and he’s always a few beers into the day regardless of mood. He chronicles the plot line of the kidnapping of Charlie Boy McCall, heir to the McCall dynasty, and he’s using his premonition to, among other things, bet the ponies.

His parlay is laid down with Billy Phelan, who can’t cover the bet (Martin’s horses came in) so Billy heads out on the town to hustle pool, cards, and booze to cover the loss. It’s a great dual storyline which finds Billy and Martin converging and departing throughout the 2+ days of the book, and while Martin has his own hangups, Billy is saddled with the reunion with his bum father Francis, who has been on the lam for decades, now returned. He also finds time to ball a Cuban Irish fox, and knows more about the kidnapping of Charlie Boy than he lets on the to McCall clan. The McCall machine aces Billy out of the town’s action for a bit, but he is reclaimed.

Endless booze, action and gabbing make BPGG a top book, and none of the thick sadness of Kennedy’s follow-up, Ironweed. God save Eliot Spitzer and all the dregs of Albany.