O, Albany! (1983)—a collection of Injournalistic essays about Albany, New York—William Kennedy writes that the city is a microcosm that reflects the American and human continuum. Beginning in 1849 and ending in 1864—a greater time frame than his other novels— Quinn's Book focuses on those cataclysmic events that shaped the destinies of its characters—the Civil War, the plight of the famine Irish, the cholera plague, slavery, and the New York draft riots.

Indeed, these events are symbolized in the novel's opening disasters: an exploding iceberg on the Hudson River and the subsequent flood and fire it caused.

One of the social concerns in Quinn's Book is to relate the turbulent effects of the Civil War on the United States, Albany, and the characters' lives. Albany's Forty-Fourth Regiment marches off to fight and die in battles. Protagonist Daniel Quinn resolutely rushes...