The Homeless of Ironweed
Subtitle: Blossoms on the Crag
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Published: January 1997
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 166
ISBN-13: 9780877455592
Subjects: Essays, journals, letters & other prose works; Novels, other prose & writers: from c 1900 -; Kennedy, William,; Kennedy, William - Prose & Criticism; Politics / Current Events; American English; English; Literary Criticism; USA; General; Kennedy, William; 1928-; Family in literature; Homelessness in literature; Ironweed; Social problems in literature
Description: The Homeless of "Ironweed " is both a meditation on Kennedy's remarkable novel and a literary and cultural analysis. Benedict Giamo's explorations of the social conditions, cultural meanings, and literary representations of classic and contemporary homelessness in America and abroad inform his understanding of the literary merit and social resonance of Ironweed.

Throughout Giamo remains grounded in a close reading of the novel. He moves with great relevance from Dante to Kenneth Burke, from Sartre to Robert Jay Lifton, to locate meaning and value in the lives of Kennedy's characters; by extension, with intelligence and compassion, he regards the lives of the homeless who wander through our streets and shefters today.