Nelson Algren
Author
Publisher
Seven Stories Press
Pub. Date
2011
Language
English
Formats
Description
Nelson Algren sought humanity in the urban wilderness of postwar America, where his powerful voice rose from behind the billboards and down tin-can alleys, from among the marginalized and ignored, the outcasts and scapegoats, the punks and junkies, the whores and down-on-their luck gamblers, the punch-drunk boxers and skid-row drunkies and kids who knew they'd never reach the age of twenty-one: all of them admirable in Algren’s eyes for their...
Author
Language
English
Formats
Description
A novel of rare genius, The Man with the Golden Arm describes the dissolution of a card-dealing WWII veteran named Frankie Machine, caught in the act of slowly cutting his own heart into wafer-thin slices. For Frankie, a murder committed may be the least of his problems.
The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm "Algren's defense of the individual," while Carl Sandburg wrote of its "strange midnight dignity." A literary...
The literary critic Malcolm Cowley called The Man with the Golden Arm "Algren's defense of the individual," while Carl Sandburg wrote of its "strange midnight dignity." A literary...
Author
Publisher
Arbor House Library of Contemporary Americana
Pub. Date
[1983]
Language
English
Description
The Devil's Stocking is the story of Ruby Calhoun, a boxer accused of murder in a shadowy world of low-purse fighters, cops, con artists, and bar girls. Chronicling a battle for truth and human dignity which gives way to a larger story of life and death decisions, literary grandmaster Nelson Algren's last novel is a fitting capstone to a long and brilliant career.--Back cover.
Author
Publisher
Seven Stories Press
Pub. Date
[2021]
Language
English
Description
"Bruno Bicek is a prizefighter and small-time hood in Chicago. Boxing is his ticket to escape hard times and gang life, but when Bruno doesn't prevent the brutal gang rape of his girlfriend, Steffi, it tears them apart, their worlds changed forever. Bruno is sent to jail and Steffi to a brothel governed by the brutality of a local crime boss, The Barber. Sinister and dark, The Barber controls Steffi and has no intention of letting her go. Why should...
Author
Publisher
Writers and Readers Pub
Pub. Date
[1986]
Language
English
Description
24 gritty, raw short stories by a famous Chicago author who uses the old Polish immigrant Division Street neighborhood as the setting for most of the tales. Dating from the 1930's through the 50's, the characters often lead hard lives filled with crime, sorrow and suffering. Includes an interview with the author and an afterword by Studs Terkel.
Author
Publisher
Seven Stories Press
Pub. Date
1998.
Language
English
Description
The struggle to write with deep emotion is the subject of this extraordinary book, the previously unpublished credo of one of America's greatest twentieth-century writers.
"You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be rich," writes Nelson Algren in his only longer work of nonfiction, adding: "A certain ruthlessness and a sense of alienation from society is as essential to creative writing as...
Author
Publisher
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Pub. Date
1998.
Language
English
Description
Overview: With its depictions of the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers, and hustlers of Perdido Street in the old French Quarter of 1930s New Orleans, A Walk in the Wild Side has found a place in the imaginations of all generations since it first appeared. As Algren admitted, the book "wasn't written until long after it had been walked. I found my way to the streets on the other side of the Southern Pacific station, where the big jukes were singing...
Author
Publisher
Blackstone Publishing
Pub. Date
2014
Language
English
Description
These four recordings of twentieth-century American authors interpreting their own works were highly praised when first released in the 1960s. Today the cultural and historical value of these recordings makes them an essential part of our literary heritage.
In this collection, James Baldwin reads from Giovanni's Room and Another Country, exploring the challenges of being black and gay in mid-twentieth century America. William Styron reads about
...