William Kennedy is a well-known author from the United States. William Kennedy is well known for his novels “Ironwood,” “The Cotton Club,” and “The Ink Truck,” among others. He was a journalist before venturing into the fictitious realm of literature. Many of William’s novels are set in Albany, New York, and center on the fictional Irish-American Phelan family.
Net Worth of William Kennedy
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William Kennedy is one of the wealthiest and most popular novelists. According to Wikipedia, Forbes, and Business Insider, William Kennedy’s net worth as of November 2022 is roughly $1.5 million.
Biography of William Kennedy
William Kennedy’s full name is William Joseph Kennedy. On January 16, 1928, he was born in Albany, New York. William has reached the age of 92.
His parents are father William Joseph Kennedy and mother Mary Elizabeth (McDonald) Kennedy. They were the offspring of Irish immigrants who arrived in North Albany in the nineteenth century.
Author Kennedy grew up raised in the Irish-Catholic area of Limerick, also known as the North End. William worked as an altar boy at Sacred Heart Church as a youth and intended to be a Catholic priest.
In addition, several of Kennedy’s family were involved in politics. His great-grandfather, “Big Jim” Carroll, was a ward leader. William Jr.’s father ran the polls for the machine and drove him to Democratic Party rallies on occasion. His mother’s two brothers were also political operatives.
Education
Kennedy attended elementary education at Public School 20. When he was in the seventh school, he became interested in print journalism. William began painting cartoons and even founded his newspaper. He began writing pieces for the school newspaper when he started high school at Christian Brothers Academy.
He went on to Christian Brothers Academy. Kennedy then departed Albany after high school and enrolled at nearby Siena College in Loudonville, upstate New York. He received his BA degree in 1949.
He progressed through the ranks of the Siena News, the collegiate newspaper, to the post of executive editor. Willaim Kennedy also enrolled in a creative writing workshop offered by famed novelist Saul Bellow at the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras.
Wife and Marriage of William Kennedy
While working in Puerto Rico, William Kennedy met Ana Daisy (Dana) Segarra. She was a dancer, singer, and actress. The couple later married in Puerto Rico in 1957, but the precise date is unknown. Their three children’s names are Dana, Katherine, and Brendan. He lives in Averill Park, New York, which is about 16 miles east of Albany.
Professional Career of William Kennedy
Following college, Kennedy worked at the Glens Falls Post Star as a sports editor and columnist. In 1950, he was drafted into the US Army and posted to the Fourth Division in Europe.
His journalistic abilities, on the other hand, were not overlooked during his tenure in the Army. William Kennedy worked for the division’s newspaper until his discharge in 1952.
William Kennedy later returned to his hometown and found a job at the Albany Times-Union in 1952. He worked for the Union for four years before moving on to the Puerto Rico World Journal. Unfortunately, the newspaper folded after nine months, putting William Kennedy out of work for the time being.
William eventually landed a job at the Miami Herald and spent some time there before returning to Puerto Rico in 1957. After working in Puerto Rico for two years, William became the first managing editor of a new newspaper, the San Juan Star.
Following his marriage in Puerto Rico, William Kennedy began writing fiction. He enrolled in Saul Bellow’s creative writing class this year. Kennedy’s early attempts in fiction impressed Bellow, who urged him to keep practicing.
For a period, William Kennedy sought to compose stories about Puerto Rico. However, he found it difficult to write authoritatively about this country without sounding like a tourist.
William soon found his muse, who pushed him to return to his hometown of Albany. He left journalism after two years with the San Juan Star. He did it instead to devote more time to his creative writing.
Willaim Kennedy returned to Albany in 1963. He was 35 years old and had already reached the pinnacle of print journalism. However, as his father’s health declined, Kennedy obtained a part-time feature writer post at the Albany Times-Union. He did so to pay his debts while also focusing on creative endeavors.
William originally earned notoriety for a series of pieces he created about his community, covering its history, politics, and interesting individuals.
These compositions served as the inspiration for Kennedy’s 1983 collection O Albany! In 1965, William was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for a series of pieces about Albany’s impoverished areas.
The world of book reviewing was another lucrative option for William Kennedy’s writing ability. He wrote 37 reviews for the National Observer between 1964 and 1972.
In the early 1970s, he also contributed to renowned national journals such as Life, The New Republic, Saturday Review, and The New York Times. Despite his triumphs, William Kennedy was sure that writing books were his actual calling.
When William Kennedy published his debut novel, The Ink Truck, in 1969, he accomplished his dream. This novel follows Bailey and a newspaper columnist caught up in a strike. The novel is also based on a true-life labor struggle at the Times-Union.
Many of William’s insights regarding Irish Catholic life in Albany were woven into his first book’s narrative. He did so by writing in a satirical prose style. Despite its relatively poor design and artistic debt to past authors, critics lauded The Ink Truck as a promising first novel.
William later found inspiration in Albany’s past. It was for his upcoming project, which merged history, fiction, and black comedy. Legs, published in 1975, chronicled the final days of gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond. He was slain in a shootout with his adversaries in an Albany boarding house in 1931.
The setting for William Kennedy’s second novel, Billy Phelan’s Greatest Game, released in 1978, was inspired by prohibition-era Albany. However, the habitat he selected to explore was closer to home and did not necessitate extensive research.
The Democratic Party’s political machine was in action. This novel is recounted through the eyes of a journalist, Martin Daugherty, and focuses on an unsuccessful effort to kidnap the son of a significant political figure.
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