The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren (9781888363180)

Description - The Man With The Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

Heralded intemationally as his definltive masterpiece, The Man With The Golden Arm is a stunning work of contemporary fiction with Nelson's renowned quality of compassion and identification with his characters at its richest and most complex. Merging a European literary senslbility with the tradition of American naturalist social protest, Algren brilliantly depicts America's third person society: a horrific state where the lower classes are exploited and dehumanised - a state where what is sordid no longer becomes shocking and abnormal as its sufferers become accustomed to their inevitable victimisation. It is in Chicago's Polish-American ghetto that Algren highlights the solid yet denied elements of the city's economy - drugs, gambling, prostitution - and the diverse range of characters who play their Individual role in this farce, the golden-armed protagonist Frankie Machine, the policeman Record Head Bednar, the peeping tom Sparrow Saltskin.
A remarkable tour de force of absurdist comedy, The Man With The Golden Arm is undeniably Algren's most impressive achievement for the brilliant synthesis of his commitment to the dispossessed, his comedy, and his vision of modem urban society.

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