A Walk on the Wild Side (47 page)

BOOK: A Walk on the Wild Side

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Praise for Nelson Algren

‘Nelson Algren may be the funniest man around. Which is another way of saying that he may be the most serious… As with all good poets, the guy is a prophet.’
STUDS TERKEL

‘A book that at root, proves America has always been a third world country.’
The Crack

‘Awesome … one of the original urban jungle anthropologists to come back with reports of another America.’
Beat Scene

‘Algren is an artist whose sympathy is as large as Victor Hugo’s, an artist who ranks, with this novel, among our best American authors.’
Chicago Sun Times

‘The finest American novel published since the war.’
Washington Post
(for
The Man with the Golden Arm
)

‘Looks back to Dickens and forward to Hubert Selby Jr and Irvine Welsh.’
Sunday Herald
(for
The Man with the Golden Arm
)

‘This is a man writing and you should not read it if you cannot take a punch… Mr Algren can hit with both hands and move around and he will kill you if you are not awfully careful… Mr Algren, boy, you are good.’
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

About the Author

NELSON ALGREN was born in 1909 in Detroit and lived mostly in Chicago. He was the author of five novels, including
A Walk on the Wild Side
(which inspired the Lou Reed song of the same name),
Somebody in Boots
and
Never Come Morning
. He was also a prolific writer of short stories, essays, travelogues and poems. In 1950
The Man with the Golden Arm
earned him the first American National Book Award.

His life was a succession of gambling problems, disastrous marriages and wild extremes – ranging from Texas prisons and skid-row soup-kitchens to Hollywood parties and literary celebrations. He also had a passionate love affair with French feminist Simone de Beauvoir.

Algren died in 1981, shortly after being appointed as a fellow of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.

RICHARD FLANAGAN’s novels
Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping
and
Gould’s Book of Fish
have been published to acclaim in 24 countries. He lives in Tasmania.

BY NELSON ALGREN

Somebody in Boots

Never Come Morning

The Neon Wilderness

The Man with the Golden Arm

Chicago: City on the Make

A Walk on the Wild Side

Who Lost an American

Notes from a Sea Diary:

Hemingway All the Way

The Devil’s Stocking

The Last Carousel