The ink truck.
- Date:
- 1969.
- Author:
- Kennedy, William, 1928-
- Collecting Area:
- Rare Books
- Publisher:
- Dial Press
- Abstract:
- This novel is about a newspaper strike of such long and futile duration that, were the strikers to accept the latest offer of the paper's management, they would be worse off than they were originally. The principal figure in this metaphysical comedy is Bailey, columnist of diminishing effect, buffoon of escalating proportions, cryptic aphorist, and chief antagonist of Stanley, the company's lawyer-negotiator. Bailey is determined to inflict just one significant defect on the enemy. He concocts a scheme to bleed the paper's ink truck of its cargo before the vehicle has reached the plant, fails in his attempt, and out of his frustration sets fire to a shack housing a group of gypsies who have been employed as company thugs. The resulting immolation of the gypsy queen starts Bailey on a wild, circular journey that careens from the real to the surreal, from bizarre life to sensational fantasy -- above ground where the gypsies seek vengeance and below, in the subterranean stacks of the city library, where Bailey nearly loses himself in recorded, and unrecorded, history. Other characters include Bailey's friend Rosenthal, a mild man with outlandish sartorial tastes, his wife, Grace, a former roller derby star living in mortal fear of her husband's pooka, the invisible snooping creature who protects him, and Irma, the guild's secretary.
- Physical Description:
- 278 pages 22 cm
- Notes:
- Special Collections' copy is part of the William Kennedy Collection. local
- Subjects:
- Newspaper publishing Fiction, Strikes and lockouts Newspapers Fiction, Newspaper publishing, and Strikes and lockouts Newspapers
- Genres/Forms:
- Autographs and Fiction
- Names:
- Kennedy, William, 1928- Autographs and Kennedy, William, 1928-
Access
Rare books do not circulate
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