Ironweed, meanwhile, had been rejected by 13 publishers. His first two novels had gone out of print. When Ironweed was published, Kennedy was deep into his 50s. Things were suddenly going well for Kennedy, but overnight success had been a long time coming. That same year, Kennedy would win the Pulitzer prize for Ironweed, sold the film rights (as well as truck-loads of copies) and received almost universally glowing reviews around the world. A man (called, pleasingly, Dr Hope) called Kennedy and told him he’d won a MacArthur Fellowship – then $264,000 (these days it is a hefty $625,000). He’d assumed it was because “I was getting reviewed in about five different major places” – but that wasn’t the half of it. Six months earlier, he’d opened a fortune cookie that said he was going to have a lucky week. When the Paris Review interviewed William Kennedy in July 1984, he had just installed a new swimming pool outside his house.
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