As rock and roll novelist Tom Carson writes in his introduction, "The Neon Wilderness is the pivotal book of Nelson Algren's career--the one which bid a subdued but determined farewell to everything that had earlier made him no more than just another good writer, and inaugurated the idiosyncratic, bedevilled, cantankerously poetic sensibility that would see him ranked among the few literary originals of his times." Algren's classic 1947 short story...

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.

"With its depictions of the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers, and hustlers of Perdido Street in the old French Quarter of 1930s New Orleans, A Walk on the Wild Side found a place in the imaginations of all the generations that have followed since." "Perhaps his own words describe the book best: "The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered...

An ex-convict recovering from heroin addiction returns to the Chicago slums and struggles to become a musician.

An ex-convict recovering from heroin addiction returns to the Chicago slums and struggles to become a musician.

An ex-convict recovering from heroin addiction returns to the Chicago slums and struggles to become a musician.

Man with the golden arm: An ex-convict recovering from heroin addiction returns to the Chicago slums and struggles to become a musician. Suddenly: A band of paid killers takes over a house in a small town, with a mission to assassinate the arriving President of the United States.

After his release from prison, a heroin addict struggles to stay clean; a woman accidentally divorces her husband and marries his best friend while on vacation in Mexico; platoons of American and Japanese soldiers must work together when both are stranded an atoll during WWII; an army veteran and failed writer returns to his Illinois hometown; a happy bachelor finds himself falling for a young woman determined to marry.

An in-depth portrait of one of America's greatest and most notorious authors. Includes interviews, rare archival footage, and the gritty voice of Nelson Algren himself. Kurt Vonnegut, Studs Terkel, and Algren scholars provide concise literary, social, and historic perspectives.