From Then into Now

From Then Into Now is the first study that both provides a close analysis of each of William Kennedy's famous Albany novels and describes the integrated nature of the Albany cycle which these novels comprise. By emphasizing the presence of the past in each of Kennedy's Albany books, and by relying on Kennedy's own sense of the simultaneous archetypal and historical nature of his hometown of Albany, From Then Into Now reveals Kennedy's sustained artistic achievement in dramatizing how the past (or history) and the future shape and give meaning to the present moment. From Then Into Now explores how Kennedy employs diverse narrative strategies in his Albany novels and yet maintains the consistent and thus unifying theme of the redemptive power inherent in a person's embracing the truth of the past and of the future. As the book reveals, this attention to the redemptive power of truth explains what might be Kennedy's most noteworthy achievement—his ability to raise the bitter historical realities of Albany—including gangsters, gambling, alcholism, and war—into a celebration of some of America's most unlikely literary heroes.