Book Review: Roscoe by William Kennedy

Roscoe Conway is second in command in the Albany Democratic machine shepherded by Patsy McCall. Patsy is schooled in the methods of Tammany Hall and idolizes the legendary Bill Tweed. Over the course of almost three decades, Roscoe, Patsy and Roscoe’s best friend Elisha have made sure their friends are successful and their enemies are snuffed out, bought out, or forced out by any means necessary.

The novel starts on Victory Day in 1945. The celebrations overshadow the fact that the new Republican governor has it out for the Democrats of Albany. Roscoe wants out, but when Elisha commits suicide, he seems to be the only man up to the task of running the town and dealing with emerging disasters.

Roscoe finds opportunity in Elisha’s death – Elisha’s wife Veronica, newly widowed, who Roscoe has been in love with almost his entire life. Years before, Veronica chose Elisha over him and he was forced to settle for her younger sister Pamela, whom he married…and soon divorced. Pamela remarried and had a child, which she gave to Veronica and Elisha to adopt, and who she is now trying to take back, saying that he is the child of her new husband and she deserves custody. While trying to woo Veronica, he is also working hard to make sure she gets to keep Gilby (adopted or not) so that she can be happy. At the end of his investigation, he figures out that Gilby’s real father is actually Veronica’s eldest son Alex, and he holds this secret tight, knowing it would destroy her. Instead, he fabricates blood tests to prove Elisha was the father – that Gilby was conceived in an act of rape – and so ultimately Veronica wins custody. He says this about Elisha to protect Veronica, and it is tragic and ironic when Alex then forbids any contact between the two, and Elisha loses her forever.

While the plot is driven by his love for Veronica and the custody battle that consumes that family, it is the world in which this story takes place that is so captivating. Frequent and involved flashbacks recall decades past, and the events and people who have shaped the Albany Roscoe lives in. These flashbacks include the murder of notorious gangster Jack “Legs” Diamond by policemen Mac and O.B. (Roscoe’s brother), the subsequent murder of O.B. by Mac, and the media cover-up. They also include a great scene at a cockfight – rigged, of course, because nothing in Albany was ever fully clean and honest. There is prostitution and bootlegging, policemen who are more criminal than the criminals they catch (and kill), and election fraud the likes of which GW Bush could only dream about.

Yet what emerges from this is not a condemnation of the corruption and the Tammany Hall politics of the era, but rather a more human story of sacrifice and survival. Despite all the ill, the men we come to know – Roscoe, Elisha, Patsy, Mac….they are all human. They all have loves, fears, obsessions. We are moved by Roscoe’s love for Veronica, and convinced when he promises that he “will try to succeed by making it a practice to be honest whenever it seems feasible.” We understand them.

In one standout flashback, we learn how Roscoe became corrupt. He calls fraudulence, in all of them, a “golden tool” he learned in grammar school when he wrote an impressive essay only to be accused of cheating. He was given another assignment and rather than perfect that one as well he took the other route – and faked a poor performance. Kennedy writes that “they beamed at his achievement. The boy is normal – wholesomely mediocre. We won’t prosecute him for sinful superiority. It happens to many a lad. He’ll do fine.” When he later confessed his ruse to his father, his father was so proud he bought Roscoe a new rifle.

This is the world Roscoe grew up in, and this is the world we come to know though Kennedy’s almost poetic prose. We see, too, a new era on the horizon. Just as the new governor is trying to destroy Patsy’s crew, we see a new generation of Democrats in Alex – slicker, smoother, and more politically correct. While the characters themselves are fictional, the world is real. Kennedy illuminates a world in transition, and brings to life characters that are wholly American – with all the good and the bad.