The Man with the Golden Arm

Nelson Algren is the eloquent and compassionate voice for the meek and the lowly, the lost and the damned of this earth, enchained by poverty, frustration, and despair. With consummate skill he lays bare their innermost lives, their tragedies, their ribald humor, their occasional triumphs.

The Man with the Golden Arm is Algren's finest novel. It tells of Frankie Machine, the dealer at Schwiefka's gambling joint, the man with the golden arm, the man who dealt the cards as if he could talk to them and they could understand. Frankie was as tough as any of the regulars at Schwiefka's but he wasn't tough enough to throw the thirty-five-pound monkey that rode his back—which was his way of saying he couldn't stay too long away from the dope needle. Frankie's world, a world made up of equal parts tragedy, comedy, and pathos, included——

Sparrow, his pal, who was a "lost-dog finder" and whose mind was "off balance on one side."

Zosh, Frankie's wife, a cripple who crooned a round of complaints into his ears because she loved him and knew that only his feeling of guilt kept him coming home.

Molly, the girl who stripped in a honky-tonk, the girl who loved Frankie enough to help him to try to shake both the cops and the thirty-five-pound monkey.

Violet, whose lusty passion frightened Sparrow.

Here is a poetry of language that makes tolerable the incredible material of lost and betrayed human beings; here is an ear tuned to the bizarre language of the disenchanted. Here is an unforgettable story.