The novel is rich in plot and dramatic tension, building as it eventually does, to a violent showdown between a gang of marauding American Legionnaires and a handful of derelicts in a hobo jungle. ''Ironweed'' - which refers to a tough-stemmed member of the sunflower family - recounts a few days in the life of an Albany skid-row bum, a former major-league third baseman with a talent for running, particularly running away, although his ambition now, at the height of the Depression, has been scaled down to the task of getting through the next 20 mintues or so. ''IRONWEED'' is William Kennedy's fourth published novel and the third in his series set in Albany, where he lives and teaches (at the State University of New York), and which he obviously knows as well as he does his own nightmares.
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