Legs (novel)

"Legs" is a novel by American author William Kennedy.

Written in 1975, this is the first of Kennedy's "Albany Novels", a series consisting of "Legs", "Billy Phelan's Greatest Game", "Ironweed", and "Very Old Bones". The book follows the life of the gangster Jack 'Legs' Diamond. It is told from the perspective of Jack's lawyer, Marcus Gorman. Through Gorman's eyes, Kennedy is able to elicit sympathy for a criminal, transposing this sympathy into the context of America during the 1920s and 30s: excess, collapse, destitution, and analysis of right and wrong, good and evil.