The EmpirePage.com - Book Reviews

Through the highly regarded writings of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist William Kennedy, Albany, N.Y. has been established as a unique location on the literary map.

Often compared with Raymond Chandler’s Los Angeles, William Faulkner’s Yoknapatawpha County and even James Joyce’s Dublin, Albany has been an integral character in Kennedy’s novels, starting with Legs in 1975. The books in the widely acclaimed "Albany Cycle" are linked by family character interconnections, historical and fictional references, and a literary style that makes Kennedy one of the most interesting, readable authors of his time.

The most recent, Roscoe, Kennedy's seventh centered in Albany, certainly perpetuates this literary tradition.

As the Boston Globe recently noted, "For more than a quarter century, [Kennedy's] books have been making Albany into a Northern, urban answer to Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County: a locale where imagination has embraced geography to produce literature. The one difference is that if you look on a map you won't find any "Yoknapatawpha" in Mississippi. Albany, though, is right there off I-90, a place as real as a beer bottle or voting booth."

Roscoe not only continues the Albany Cycle but it provides an hilarious, introspective discourse on local politics, Albany-style. If, as Tip O’Neill contends, "all politics are local," then Roscoe presents "all politics" as a peculiar potion of power, patronage, petty partisanship, pragmatism and personal relationships.

As the capital of New York state, Albany has hosted big time politics ever since Henry Hudson, in the early 17th century, sailed up the river that bears his name. But in the 20th century, politics was truly the major league sport of choice, driven by a powerful Democratic machine that controlled City Hall (including one mayor for 42 years), the courts, patronage jobs and money.

How did they do it? Roscoe – "a novel, not history" Kennedy says in an author’s note (but anyone familiar with Albany knows otherwise) – offers an inside-the-machine perspective.

Here’s how the title character’s father, a former mayor and political leader, describes how those in power make money:

"How do you get the money?"
"If you run ’em for office and they win, you charge ’em a year’s wages.
"Keep taxes low, but if you have to raise ’em, call it something else. The city can’t do without vice, so pinch the pimps and milk the madams. Anybody that sells the flesh, tax ’em.
"If anybody wants city business, 30 percent back to us.
"Maintain the streets and sewers, but don’t overdo it. Well-lit streets discourage sin, but don’t overdo it. If they play craps, poker, or blackjack, cut the game. If they play faro or roulette, cut it double.
"If they keep their dance halls open 24 hours, tax ’em twice. If they run a gyp joint, tax ’em triple.
"If they send prisoners to our jail, charge ’em rent, at hotel prices.
"Keep the cops happy and let ’em have a piece of the pie. A small piece.
"Never buy anything that you can rent forever.
"If you pave a street, a three-cent brick should be worth 30 cents to the city. Pave every street with a church on it.
"Encourage parents to send their kids to Catholic schools; it lowers the public-school budget.
"When in doubt, appoint another judge, and pay him enough so’s he don’t have to shake down the lawyers.
"Cultivate lawyers. They know how it is done and will do it.
"Control the district attorney and never let him go; for he controls the grand juries. "Make friends with millionaires and give ’em what they need.
"Whenever you confront a monopoly, acquire it.
"Open an insurance company and make sure anybody doing city business buys a nice policy. If you don’t know diddle about insurance, open a brewery and make ’em buy your beer.
"Give your friends jobs, but at a price, and make new friends every day.
"Let the sheriff buy anything he wants for the jail. Never stop a ward leader from stealing; it’s what keeps him honest.
"Keep your plumbers and electricians working, and remember it takes three men to change a wire. "Republicans are all right as long as they’re on our payroll.
"A city job should raise a man’s dignity but not his wages.
"Anybody on our payroll pays us dues, three percent of the yearly salary, which is nice. But if they’re on that new civil service and won’t pay and you can’t fire ’em, transfer ’em to the dump.
"If you find people who like to vote, let ’em. Don’t be afraid to spend money for votes on Election Day. It’s a godsend to the poor, and good for business; but make it old bills, ones and twos, or they get suspicious. And only give ’em out in the river wards, never uptown.
"If an uptown voter won’t register Democrat, raise his taxes. If he fights the raise, make him hire one of our lawyers to reduce it in court. Once it’s lowered, raise it again next year.
"Knock on every door and vote ’em. If they’re breathing, take ’em to the polls. If they won’t go, threaten ’em.
"Find out who’s dead and who’s dying, which is as good as dead, and vote ’em. There’s a hell of a lot of dead and they never complain. The opposition might cry fraud but let ’em prove it after the election. People say voting the dead is immoral, but what the hell, if they were alive they’d all be Democrats. Just because they’re dead don’t mean they’re Republicans."

Set in 1945 as World War II ends, Roscoe is the story of Roscoe Owen Conway, who, "presided at Albany Democratic Party headquarters, on the eleventh floor of the State Bank building, the main stop for Democrats on the way to heaven." He is an unscrupulous, lovable, romantic, Falstaffian, brilliant political operative who works tirelessly to make sure political power remains in the right hands, personal friends are taken care of and pesky problems (legal, moral and others) are handled.

When he decides to get out of politics and pursue an old romance with the widow of his wealthy, long-time friend and political partner (who has just committed suicide), the smooth running machine begins to creak and the world around him turns upside down. That the governor and state police are trying to crack down on machine activities adds to his worries.

Through flashbacks and side-trips we run into some of the real famous and infamous who peopled Albany, including FDR, Al Smith and gangster Legs Diamond. Legs’ court appearances and "gangland assassination" in a Dove Street boarding house, long the titillating topic of Albany rumors, are addressed in grisly details.

We also get to learn more about the cockfighting trade than most people would like to know. In Roscoe (and, perhaps in the real Albany), political leaders raised champion cockfighters; high stakes, bloody battles were attended by judges, business executives and a broad cross-section of society; and the rituals of the "sport" offered metaphorical looks at political in-fighting. In some respects, Kennedy’s writing on cockfighting is reminiscent of Melville’s descriptions of whaling.

Janet Maislin of The New York Times writes that Roscoe is the "most overtly political novel in Kennedy's Albany cycle." Indeed it is. And it is among the most Kennedyesque. With its vivid writing, (which "jumps off the page" as one critic observed), memorable characters (recognizable to those familiar with Albany history and politics), intriguing literary style and wonderful wit ("As I am incapable of truth, so am I incapable of lying, which is, as all know, the secret of the truly successful politician."), Roscoe is a comic masterpiece and a worthy addition to the Albany Cycle.

(David P. Brown, like Mr. Kennedy, is a former editor and reporter with the Albany Times Union, and has written on politics and local history for a number of publications. He is also president of Sawchuk, Brown Associates, an Albany-based public affairs firm.)