The Homeless of Ironweed is both a meditation on William Kennedy's remarkable, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and a literary and cultural analysis. Throughout Giamo remains grounded in a close reading of the novel which explores the social conditions, cultural meanings, and literary representations of classic and contemporary homelessness in America and abroad. Divided into chapters built around the play of central motifs in Ironweed, Giamo's study is wry and learned; his prose style, with its alternating lyrical and expositional modes, reflects the richly varied form and style of the novel itself.
“An excellent book…Giamo reads Ironweed in a richly nuanced context of major ideas about human nature and experience without recourse to the narrow and wholly professionalized discourses of contemporary academic criticism. His reading is above all an exercise in humanistic criticism.”—Donald Pizer, Tulane University
Contents
Author’s Note
Introduction
One: Snows of Reduction
Two: Memory…as Vivid as Eyesight
Three: The Fugitive Dance
Four: A Creature Worthy of Scrutiny
Five: Apparencies and Antinomies
Six: The Helen Blossom
Afterword: Cycle and Form
Notes
Bibliography
