About the Author

Nelson Algren (1909-1981) wrote of the despised underbelly of America before it was fashionable to do so, and still stands as one of America's most defiant and enduring novelists. His novels include The Man with the Golden Arm, winner of the first National Book Award, A Walk on the Wild Side and Never Come Morning.

Reviews

"This is a man writing and you should not read if you cannot take a punch... Mr Algren, boy, you are good." - Ernest Hemingway "The Devil's Stocking is clearly vintage Algren. [He] seems not to have aged but only matured and to be, as never before, in firm possession of his subject. His language throughout the novel is precise, controlled, almost entirely free of the lush lyrical excesses in the classic Algren repertoire, yet is also freshly conceived and carried forward with an easy assurance that indicates Algren had it in him to write five or six more novels in the same vein." - New York Times Book Review "Algren is an artist whose sympathy is as large as Victor Hugo's, an artist who ranks among the best American authors." - Chicago Sun Times"