The second of Kennedy's published novels (after The Ink Truck, 1969) and first in the early work frequently referred to as the Albany cycle, Legs stands somewhat apart in its use of an historical protagonist moving in a political and social world only occasionally involving Albany. Diamond and Gorman celebrate at the Parody Club and the Rain-Bo room in the Kenmore Hotel, Gorman at Keeler's Men's Bar after Jack's acquittal, Jack recuperates from the fourth assassination attempt at the Albany hospital. But except for Marcus Gorman, who appears in Billy Phelan's Greatest Game (1978) to defend a gambler against a kidnapping charge, none of the named characters recur in other novels in the cycle. Kennedy's collection of essays entitled O Albany! offers the most significant parallel reading to Legs in their discussion of those social and political issues and personalities that are so prominent in the novel. Of...