Kennedy Remembers Doctorow in the Times Union

In Wednesday's Times Union, William Kennedy remembers his friend, E. L. Doctorow, who passed away on July 21, 2015:

"I feel something has gone out of American life with Ed gone and the other great writers we've lost," Kennedy said, mentioning the death of James Salter last month, Peter Matthiessen last year and Norman Mailer and Joe Heller in years past.

"In a certain sense, those were the guys I was talking to when I was writing," he said. "We were having long conversations with each other and the world in our novels."

More in the TU (new subscribers may need to sign up for TU+):
http://www.timesunion.com/tuplus-local/article/William-Kennedy-on-E-L-Doctorow-and-the-Albany-6411203.php

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On Being a Patton

Robert Patton was 12 years old in 1970 as he sat beside his father in a Times Square theater and watched the newly released film "Patton," starring George C. Scott.

"I couldn't understand why my dad was sobbing during the movie," he recalled. "I guess that's the first time I realized I was the grandson of the famous general I was watching depicted on the big screen."

Before seeing "Patton," the adolescent boy only vaguely grasped the historical importance of the famous World World II commander and knew him as a long-dead grandfather seen in faded photographs and heard about in stories at family gatherings.

More from Paul Grondahl in yesterday's Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Grandson-of-Gen-Patton-examines-war-5458306.php

Robert Patton visited the Writers Institute on April 29th:  http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst/webpages4/archives/patton_Robert14.html

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Remembering a "Rock Star" Gangster in the Times Union

Paul Grondahl writes about legendary Capital Region gangster Legs Diamond with some anecdotes supplied by William Kennedy and attorney E. Stewart Jones:

The Collar City was Mob City in the Prohibition era, and no bootlegger was a bigger rock star of the underworld than Jack "Legs" Diamond.

He swaggered through throngs lined up on the sidewalks around the Rensselaer County Courthouse, where he was put on trial two weeks before Christmas in 1931 on charges of kidnapping and assault.

Diamond walked a few blocks across Second Street each morning to the courthouse from the office of his lawyer, Abbott Jones, and basked in the adulation of Trojans who shouted Diamond's name, cheered and reached out to clasp his hand.....

More in the Times Union:  http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/The-unfinished-business-of-Legs-Diamond-5053434.php

Picture: NYPD mugshot of Jack Diamond.

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