Chango's Beads and Two-tone Shoes - Softcover

'Bracing... Kennedy's journalistic training is manifest in a clear, sure voice that swiftly guides the reader through a refreshingly old-school narrative. Thick with backroom deal making and sharp commentary on corruption, Kennedy's novel describes a world he clearly knows, and through plenty of action, careful historical detail, and larger-than-life characters, he brilliantly brings it to life' (Publisher's Weekly, starred review) 'Kennedy's eighth Albany novel taxes its reader but provides an evocative, jazz-infused ride through revolutionary Cuba and Sixties Albany, complete with Hemingway, gun-running girlfriends and race riots' (Sunday Telegraph) --Sunday Telegraph

When journalist Daniel Quinn meets Ernest Hemingway at the Floridita bar in Havana, Cuba, in 1957, he has no idea that his own affinity for simple, declarative sentences will change his life radically overnight. So begins William Kennedy's latest novel -- a tale of revolutionary intrigue, heroic journalism, crooked politicians, drug-running gangsters, Albany race riots, and the improbable rise of Fidel Castro. Quinn's epic journey carries him through the night clubs and jungles of Cuba and into the newsrooms and racially charged streets of Albanny on he day Robert Kennedy is fatally shot in 1968.