William Kennedy’s 1984 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is Ironweed.
Published in 1983, the novel follows Francis Phelan, an alcoholic and former baseball player who returns to Albany, New York, after years of living as a drifter. He confronts his past, including the accidental death of his young son and the people he abandoned.
The novel combines realistic social detail with supernatural elements: Francis encounters ghosts connected to his violent and troubled history. Kennedy uses these visions to explore guilt, memory, homelessness, and the possibility of reconciliation.
Ironweed is part of Kennedy’s Albany cycle, which also includes Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game and Very Old Bones. It won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was later adapted into a film starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep.