Published in 1983, Ironweed is the third entry in William Kennedy’s cycle of historical fiction set in Albany, New York; it garnered critical acclaim and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award. The novel details a few days in the life of Francis Phelan, a drifter long estranged from his family, upon his return to Albany in 1938, taking his story as a chance to explore the repercussions of social and personal upheaval. True to Kennedy’s work as a journalist, the realist novel recreates a bygone era in vivid detail. In 1987, Ironweed was adapted into a film starring Jack Nicholson as Francis and Meryl Streep as Helen, with both actors earning Academy Award nominations. Citations in this guide correspond with the 1983 edition published by The Viking Press.

Plot Summary

The main action of Ironweed takes place over two days in the life of its 58-year-old protagonist, Francis Phelan, a onetime professional baseball player and family man who is now homeless. As the novel opens, Francis and his friend Rudy earn a few dollars by shoveling dirt in a cemetery in 1938 Albany, New York, Francis’s hometown to which he recently returned. Narrated from an omniscient third-person perspective, the text reveals Francis’s grief-stricken thoughts as he visits the grave of his son, who died as an infant when Francis accidentally dropped him 22 years earlier, prompting Francis to leave his wife and remaining children.

His work over, Francis goes looking for his longtime girlfriend, Helen. Throughout the novel, ghosts from his past haunt him, including several men that Francis killed, accidentally or otherwise. The author describes these ghosts as matter-of-factly as anything else in the text, and Francis regularly converses with them, though only he can see them.

Francis finds Helen at a mission-run soup kitchen. After dinner, they visit a bar where Helen, who was a notable singer in her youth, performs a few numbers to great applause. Before they can check into a hotel for the night, someone steals their money, leaving Francis and Helen to settle for separate and far-from-ideal sleeping conditions.

The next day, Francis takes another job, this time as an assistant to a ragman who collects discarded items. The ragman’s boasting about sexual encounters leads Francis to reflect on his formative relationship with Katrina Daugherty, a housewife who seduced Francis while he was in his teens. As they pass the house where Francis’s family lives, he plucks up the courage to visit them. They are generally happy to see him, but he decides not to spend the night, even as he struggles to come to terms with his guilt.

Meanwhile, Helen, who has a tumor in her stomach, spends time first at a church, then in a record shop, where she listens to samples of classical music. After fainting in the middle of a recording, she rents a hotel room with a hidden stash of money. In her room, she looks back on her life with satisfaction before dying a peaceful death.

Francis meets up with Rudy, and the two go drinking and then visit a hobo jungle, which a group of raiders attacks. Francis attacks one raider, possibly killing him, and Rudy dies after sustaining serious injuries. Francis then finds Helen dead in her hotel room. Francis is about to leave Albany again when another ghost from his past convinces him to go back home to Annie. He does so, hinting that he might choose to stay for a while.

With its deeply human characters and rich historical setting, Ironweed provides a moving portrait of life on the bottom rungs of American society. Even as he acknowledges the futility of violence committed by characters like Francis, Kennedy suggests that such characters are, like everyone else, just trying to get by.