Nelson Algren
The Man with the Golden Arm
pbk 01 Sep 98
Bibliography
The Man with the Golden Arm
With a prologue and epilogue by Barry Gifford
Frankie Machine reckons he's a tough guy in the Chicago underworld, dealing cards in a backstreet gambling den and hustling two-bit scams to pay for a heroin addiction he wants to kick but can't. He convinces himself that playing 'the tubs' is the only way out of the poverty and addiction that is consuming him
Around him revolve the lives of Sophie, his crippled, nagging wife; Molly, the saloon-bar stripper who loves him and tries to keep him free from the cops and his drug habit; Nifty Louie, Frankie's neighbourhood dealer; and Sparrow the punk, an unreformable petty thief and Frankie's closest friend.
With Consummate skill Algren lays bare the tragedy and humour of Frankie's world, the people on both sides of the law who are trapped by poverty, frustration and despair. Algren's sympathetic portrait of the people living in the Chicago slums is one of the classics of modern literature and was the first-ever winner of the National Book Award.
'... I was going to write a war novel. But it turned out to be the Golden Arm thing. I mean, the war kind of slipped away and those people with the hyper came along and that was it' Nelson Algren
'This is a man writing and you should not read it if you cannot take a punch... Mr Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful ... Mr Algren, boy, you are good' ERNEST HEMINGWAY
'Powerful, grisly, antic, horrifying, poetic, compassionate ... [there is] virtually nothing more that one could ask' NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
'Algren is an artist whose sympathy is as large as Victor Hugo's, an artist who ranks, with this novel, among our best American authors' CHICAGO SUN TIMES
'A true novelist's triumph.' TIME
Bibliography
N.B. dates and publishers in dark red indicate British First Editions. Dates and publishers in black indicate recent reprints.
The Man with the Golden Arm
(Rebel inc Pbk,
1998)
Pbk Sep 98
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