**A collection of Algren’s lost and unfinished writings, including his last novel and several stories considered to be among his masterpieces, with a new introduction by Algren's biographer Colin Asher."You should not read [Algren] if you can’t take a punch. Mr. Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful." —Ernest Hemingway**Nelson Algren sought humanity in the urban wilderness of postwar America, where his powerful vo...

**A newly designed edition of one of the most worldly collections in Nelson Algren’s repertoire with a new introduction by Colin Asher."Algren at the top of his form."—New York Times**The fiction and reportage included in The Last Carousel, one of the final collections published during Nelson Algren's lifetime, was written on ships and in ports of call around the world, and includes accounts of brothels in Vietnam and Mexico, stories of the boxing ring, an...

Dove Findhorn is a naïve country boy who busts out of Hicksville, Texas in pursuit of a better life in New Orleans. Amongst the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers and hustlers of the old French Quarter, Dove finds only hopelessness, crime and despair. His quest uncovers a harrowing grotesque of the American Dream.A Walk in the Wild Side is an angry, lonely, large-hearted and often funny masterpiece that has captured the imaginations of every generation since its first publication ...

Frankie Machine, a veteran of the Second World War, returns to Chicago's Northwest side with a morphine habit. Nicknamed the 'kid with the golden arm', Frankie is an aspiring drummer by day and an illicit card-dealer by night. In Molly, an old flame, he sees the chance for redemption, for hard work and success - but the demons that chase Frankie are not quite ready to let go.Nelson Algren's critically acclaimed and enormously powerful novel probes the lives of the displaced and dis...

The struggle to write with deep emotion is the subject of this extraordinary book, the previously unpublished credo of one of America's greatest 20th-century writers."You don't write a novel out of sheer pity any more than you blow a safe out of a vague longing to be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 it is to armed robbery."Nonconformi...

Never Come Morning is unique among the novels of Algren. The author's only romance, the novel concerns Brun Bicek, a would-be pub from Chicago's Northwest side, and Steffi, the woman who shares his dream while living his nightmare. "It is an unusual and brilliant book," said The New York Times. "A bold scribbling upon the wall for comfortable Americans to ponder and digest." This new edition features an introduction by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and an interview with Nelson Algren by H.E.F. Donohu...

Nelson Algren was a renowned writer, known for his penetrating and influential social novels such as The Man With the Golden Arm and A Walk on the Wild Side. Originally published in 1935, Somebody in Boots was Algren’s first novel, based on his experiences living in Texas during the Great Depression. A wonderful companion to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, this new edition of Somebody in Boots features an introduction by Colin Asher, who has wr...

A boxer finds himself the targeted victim of a vindictive group in the story of one man’s battle against injustice in the dark underworld of urban America.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 fitt...

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.Nelson Algren reads from his most famous novel, The Man with the Golden Arm, about the decline and fall of a drug dealer and card sharp. Bernard Malamud's devastating selection from The Magic Barrel portrays poo...

These 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 a disabled child finding ...

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 it is to armed robbery.”...

Author Nelson Algren reads from his award-winning novel, The Man with the Golden Arm. The passage tells of Frankie Machine's wife, Sophie, who confined to a wheelchair since a drunk-driving accident caused by Frankie. The narration implies that Sophie's paralysis is psychological in origin, and is unconsciously used to keep Frankie with her. Frankie is in hiding, being sought by the police for murder. Sophie waits anxiously for his return, recalling their early love, and drifting ...