The Man With the Golden Arm

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 he 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, unreformable petty theif 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 in poverty, frustration and despair. Algren's sympathetic portrait of 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.