{"id":5347,"date":"2021-01-26T22:37:17","date_gmt":"2021-01-26T22:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stanford.edu\/group\/bookclub\/cgi-bin\/wordpress\/?p=5347"},"modified":"2022-03-09T23:49:45","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T23:49:45","slug":"william-kennedys-billy-phelans-greatest-game-a-february-26-zoom-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/?p=5347","title":{"rendered":"William Kennedy\u2019s \u201cBilly Phelan\u2019s Greatest Game\u201d \u2013 a February 26 Zoom discussion!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

William Kennedy and friends (Photo: New York Writers Institute)<\/p><\/div>\n

Please join us at 3 p.m. on Friday, February 26, for the \u201cAnother Look\u201d Zoom discussion of\u00a0William Kennedy<\/strong>\u2018s\u00a0Billy Phelan\u2019s Greatest Game,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0the Pulitzer prizewinning novelist\u2019s 1978 novel about a pool hustler and poker player during the 1930s. Kennedy has been called the \u201cBard of Albany.”\u00a0Register for the event\u00a0HERE<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Kennedy began his career as a reporter. After a stint in the military and in Puerto Rico, he returned to his hometown\u00a0<\/em>and saw the city of his birth with new eyes: \u201cWithout a sense of place, you don’t, as a writer, have very much. Place is all those forces of a given society impinging upon and determining character. Without it, a book becomes bloodless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>According to Stanford’s Tobias Wolff<\/span>,<\/strong><\/a> who will lead the discussion: \u201cBilly Phelan\u2019s Greatest Game<\/em> belongs to William Kennedy’s celebrated Albany sequence of novels. Set during the Depression, it concerns a young gambler and bookie, the Billy of the title, who suffers a setback that compels him to embark on an odyssey \u2013 and I use that word advisedly \u2013 through the demimonde of his city, during which he encounters temptations and dangers that test his resolve to the limit. There are gangsters, there is a kidnapping, but at its core this novel is about character, and what this man will do and endure to preserve his honor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The discussion will be lead by National Medal of Arts winner\u00a0<\/span>Tobias Wolff, with panelists\u00a0<\/span>Carol Edgarian<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, novelist and founding editor of\u00a0<\/span>Narrative Magazine<\/em>; and <\/span>Robert Pogue Harrison<\/strong><\/span>,<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

As many of you recall, this event was originally scheduled for April 7, but cancelled because of COVID. The rescheduled event marks Another Look’s triumph over adversity.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Please join us in celebrating with this special event \u2013 our second Zoom get-together, and only the second time we have featured a living writer. You can read<\/strong>\u00a0Cynthia Haven<\/strong><\/span><\/a>‘s Q&A interview with Bill Kennedy over at The Los Angeles Review of Books<\/em>\u00a0<\/strong>here<\/strong><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Again, register for the event here<\/strong><\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Please join us at 3 p.m. on Friday, February 26, for the \u201cAnother Look\u201d Zoom discussion of\u00a0William Kennedy\u2018s\u00a0Billy Phelan\u2019s Greatest Game,\u00a0the Pulitzer prizewinning novelist\u2019s 1978 novel about a pool hustler and poker player during the 1930s. Kennedy has been called … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anotherlook.stanford.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}