The Man with the Golden Arm (novel)

Last updated
The Man with the Golden Arm
ManWithTheGoldenArm.JPG
First edition
Author Nelson Algren
Cover artist'Karov'
LanguageEnglish
Published1949 Doubleday
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint (hardback)
Pages343 pp
OCLC 565975
LC Class PS3501.L4625

The Man with the Golden Arm is a novel by Nelson Algren, published by Doubleday in November 1949. One of the seminal novels of post-World War II American letters, The Man with the Golden Arm is widely considered Algren's greatest and most enduring work. It won the National Book Award in 1950. [1]

Contents

The novel details the trials and hardships of illicit card dealer "Frankie Machine", along with an assortment of colorful characters, on Chicago's Near Northwest Side. A veteran of World War II, Frankie struggles to stabilize his personal life while trying to make ends meet and fight a growing addiction to morphine. Much of the story takes place during the immediate postwar period along Division Street and Milwaukee Avenue in the old Polish Downtown.

Plot summary

The events of the novel take place between 1946 and 1948, primarily on the Near Northwest Side of Chicago. The title character is Francis Majcinek, known as "Frankie Machine," a young man of about 30 who is a gifted card dealer and an amateur drummer. While serving in World War II, Frankie is treated for shrapnel in his abdomen and medicated with morphine. He develops an addiction to the drug, although initially in the story he believes he can control his habit.

Frankie lives in a small apartment on Division Street in a Polish neighborhood with his wife, Sophie (nicknamed "Zosh"). Sophie has been using a wheelchair since a drunk-driving incident caused by Frankie (although the novel implies that her paralysis is psychological in nature). She spends most of her time looking out the window and watching the nearby elevated rail line. She takes out her frustrations by fighting with her husband, and she uses his guilt to keep him from leaving her. The turmoil in their relationship only spurs on his addiction.

Frankie works nights dealing in backroom card games operated by "Zero" Schwiefka. He aspires to join the Musicians' Union and work with jazz drummer Gene Krupa, but this dream never materializes. His constant companion and protégé is Solly "Sparrow" Saltskin, a feeble-minded half-Jewish thief who specializes in stealing and selling dogs; Frankie gets Sparrow a job as a "steerer," watching the door to the card games and drawing in gamblers.

Often referring to his drug habit as the "thirty-five-pound monkey on his back," Frankie initially tries to keep Sparrow and the others in the dark about it. He sends Sparrow away whenever he visits "Nifty Louie" Fomorowski, his supplier. One night, while fighting in a back stairwell, Frankie inadvertently kills Nifty Louie. He and Sparrow attempt to cover up his role in the murder.

Meanwhile, Frankie begins an affair with a childhood friend, "Molly-O" Novotny, after her abusive husband is arrested. Molly helps Frankie fight his addiction, but they soon become separated when Frankie is imprisoned for shoplifting and she moves out of the neighborhood. Without Molly, he begins using drugs again when he is released.

Nifty Louie owed money to politically connected men, and finding his killer becomes a priority for the police department. Sparrow is held for questioning by the police, and he is moved from station to station to circumvent habeas corpus requirements. Eventually he breaks down and reveals what he knows, and Frankie is forced to flee.

While on the run, Frankie manages to find Molly at a strip club near Lake Street. He hides in her apartment and beats his addiction, but in the end the authorities learn where he is hiding. He barely manages to escape and gets shot in the foot, leaving Molly behind. He flees to a flophouse, but without any hope of reuniting with Molly or staying free, he hangs himself in his room on April Fools' Day, 1948.

The novel ends with a transcript of the coroner's inquest, as well as a poem for Frankie entitled "Epitaph."

Background

Algren began writing the novel after (much like his protagonist) returning from World War II, and he originally intended to write a war novel. [2] The part of Chicago he lived in served as the backdrop for the story. [3] He originally intended the title to be Night Without Mercy, but the publisher preferred a less ominous title. [4] Algren stated that "golden arm" originated as a term frequently used by a "little Italian bookie... I knew in the Army." [2]

Before the novel's publication, a version of its concluding poem, "Epitaph: The Man with the Golden Arm", was released in the September 1947 issue of Poetry (New York: Modern Poetry Association).

The first draft of the story did not include the topic of drug addiction. Algren later recalled, "I’d sent the book to the agent, and the agent said she liked it and all that, but it needed a peg, it didn’t seem to be hung on anything." While considering what to do, he went out for drinks with a friend who later revealed that he was an intravenous drug user. This inspired Algren to incorporate drug use into the novel. [2]

Reception

Annual National Book Awards were re-established in 1950 by the American book industry, recognizing books in three categories published in the United States during 1949. Nelson Algren and The Man With the Golden Arm won the Fiction award [1] which is sometimes called "the first National Book Award for Fiction". [lower-alpha 1] Former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt made the presentation. [5] [6]

The novel is widely considered a classic of twentieth-century American literature.

Writing of Algren and the novel, Kurt Vonnegut stated that "he was a pioneering ancestor of mine... He broke new ground by depicting persons said to be dehumanized by poverty and ignorance and injustice as being genuinely dehumanized, and dehumanized quite permanently." [7] Poet Carl Sandburg praised the novel's "strange midnight dignity." [8]

In a 1949 letter to Algren, Ernest Hemingway provided the following review of the novel (which Doubleday chose not to include in its marketing):

Into a world of letters where we have the fading Faulkner and that overgrown Li'l Abner Thomas Wolfe casts a shorter shadow every day, Algren comes like a corvette or even a big destroyer... 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. [9]

In his 1981 obituary for Algren, Chicago newspaper columnist Mike Royko, who grew up near Division Street, recalled first reading the book while serving in the Korean War. "It was the first time I had read a novel that was set in a place I knew. And Algren, with The Man with the Golden Arm, had captured it. He had the people, the sounds, the alleys, the streets, the feel of the place." [10]

The novel was controversial at the time, and it did receive some critical reviews. In a 1956 article for The New Yorker entitled "The Man with the Golden Beef," Norman Podhoretz was critical of what he saw as the glorification of the underclass at the expense of respectable society. [11] This sentiment was shared by Leslie Fiedler in an article on Algren's writings for The Reporter entitled "The Noble Savages of Skid Row." [11] [12]

Like Algren's previous novel, Never Come Morning, The Man with the Golden Arm drew fire from leaders of Chicago's Polish community, who criticized the portrayal of their community in the story. [3] Royko wrote of these critics, "They believed that... Algren was presenting them in a poor light. I guess they would have preferred that he write a novel about a Polish dentist who changed his name and moved from the old neighborhood to a suburb as soon as he made enough money." [10]

Film adaptation

In 1955, the book was made into a film directed by Otto Preminger and starring Frank Sinatra. Though author Nelson Algren was initially brought to Hollywood to work on the screenplay, he was quickly replaced by Walter Newman. [3] [13] Algren felt negatively about his experiences in Hollywood, the lack of compensation he received, and the liberties taken by the filmmakers (which included an entirely different ending from the novel). [14] When photographer and friend Art Shay asked Algren to pose below the film's marquee, he is reported to have said "What does that movie have to do with me?"; [3] [15] on another occasion Algren commented about the movie that "Sinatra shook heroin like he shook a summer cold". [16]

Notes

  1. Officially the awards are simply "National Book Awards" in multiple categories; "for Fiction" and so one are not part of the name. The same was true in 1950 and for the pre-war awards, in 1936 to 1942 for previous year's publications anywhere in the world. Some pre-war award categories were Most Distinguished Novel, later Favorite Fiction; Most Original Book, which might be fiction; and Bookseller Discovery, which might be fiction. See National Book Award history and its links.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saul Bellow</span> American writer (1915–2005)

Saul Bellow was an American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times, and he received the National Book Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simone de Beauvoir</span> French philosopher, social theorist and activist (1908–1986)

Simone Lucie Ernestine Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir was a French existentialist philosopher, writer, social theorist, and feminist activist. Though she did not consider herself a philosopher, nor was she considered one at the time of her death, she had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.

<i>The Man with the Golden Arm</i> 1955 film by Otto Preminger

The Man with the Golden Arm is a 1955 American independent drama film noir directed by Otto Preminger, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson Algren. Starring Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Arnold Stang and Darren McGavin, it recounts the story of a drug addict who gets clean while in prison, but struggles to stay that way in the outside world. Although the addictive drug is never identified in the film, according to the American Film Institute "most contemporary and modern sources assume that it is heroin", although in Algren's book it is morphine. The film's initial release was controversial for its treatment of the then-taboo subject of drug addiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nelson Algren</span> American writer (1909–1981)

Nelson Algren was an American writer. His 1949 novel The Man with the Golden Arm won the National Book Award and was adapted as the 1955 film of the same name.

<i>Naked Lunch</i> 1959 novel by William S. Burroughs

Naked Lunch is a 1959 novel by American Beat generation writer William S. Burroughs. The novel does not follow a clear linear plot, but is instead structured as a series of non-chronological "routines". Many of these routines follow William Lee, an opioid addict who travels to the surreal city of Interzone and begins working for the organization "Islam Inc."

Meyer Levin was an American novelist. Perhaps best known for his work on the Leopold and Loeb case, Levin worked as a journalist.

<i>Chicago: City on the Make</i> 1951 essay by Nelson Algren

Chicago: City on the Make is a book-length essay by Nelson Algren published in 1951.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melissa Bank</span> American author (1961–2022)

Melissa Susan Bank was an American author. She published two books—The Wonder Spot, a volume of short stories, and The Girls' Guide to Hunting and Fishing—and won the 1993 Nelson Algren Award for short fiction. She taught at Stony Brook University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Medical Center, Lexington</span> United States federal prison in Kentucky

The Federal Medical Center, Lexington is a United States federal prison in Kentucky for male or female inmates requiring medical or mental health care. It is designated as an administrative facility, which means that it holds inmates of all security classifications. It is operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, a division of the United States Department of Justice. The facility also has an adjacent minimum-security satellite camp for female inmates.

<i>The Winter of Frankie Machine</i> 2006 thriller novel by American writer Don Winslow

The Winter of Frankie Machine is a 2006 thriller novel by American writer Don Winslow.

Joshua Furst is an American fiction writer. He studied as an undergraduate at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, receiving a BFA in Dramatic Writing in 1993 and did graduate work at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop, from which he received an MFA with Honors in 2001.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polish Downtown (Chicago)</span>

Polish Downtown was Chicago's oldest and most prominent Polish settlement. Polish Downtown was the political, cultural and social capital of Poles in Chicago and of other Polish Americans throughout North America. Centered on Polonia Triangle at the intersection of Division, Ashland and Milwaukee Avenue, the headquarters for almost every major Polish organization in the United States was clustered within its vicinity, beginning with the Polish National Alliance to the Polish Daily News.

Nonconformity: Writing on Writing is a book-length essay by Nelson Algren, intended for publication in 1953 but released posthumously in 1996 by Seven Stories Press. Kurt Vonnegut called it, "A handbook for tough, truth-telling outsiders who are proud, as was Algren, to damn well stay that way."

John Wesley Conroy was a leftist American writer, also known as a worker-writer. He was best known for his contributions to proletarian literature: fiction and nonfiction about the life of American workers during the early decades of the 20th century.

<i>Somebody in Boots</i> 1935 novel by Nelson Algren

Somebody in Boots is writer Nelson Algren's first novel, based on his personal experiences of living in Texas during the Great Depression. The novel was published by Vanguard Press in 1935. The title refers to someone with material well-being and authority, as poor folk and the powerless wore shoes or went barefoot. The bosses and police feared by the poor and downtrodden wear boots, which not only symbolize their power and relative affluence, but can be used as weapons against them.

A list of the published work of Nelson Algren, American writer.

<i>Do Not Say We Have Nothing</i> 2016 novel by Madeleine Thien

Do Not Say We Have Nothing is a novel by Madeleine Thien published in 2016 in Canada. It follows a 10-year-old girl and her mother who invite a Chinese refugee into their home. Critically acclaimed, in 2016 the author was awarded both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for this novel. It was short-listed for the Man Booker Prize as well as the Women's Prize for Fiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Hamlin (fiction writer)</span>

Edward Hamlin is an American fiction writer and composer of music for acoustic guitar.

<i>Boss</i> (book) 1971 book by Mike Royko

Boss: Richard J. Daley of Chicago is a 1971 non-fiction book by Chicago Daily News columnist Mike Royko, about six-term Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley (1902–1976) and the political machine and municipal government over which Daley presided.

Geoffrey Manwaring Shurlock was an Anglo-American motion picture industry executive who served as Hollywood's chief censor as the Director of the Motion Picture Association of America's Production Code Administration from 1954 to 1969, an era when movie producers demanded more freedom from censorship. During the latter years of Shurlock's reign, the Production Code and its seal of approval that was required by most film exhibitors for a movie to be shown was replaced by the ratings system.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Book Awards – 1950". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 31 March 2012.
    (With essays by Rachel Kushne and Harold Augenbraum from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)
  2. 1 2 3 Anderson, Alston; Southern, Terry. Plimpton, George; Khan, Sadruddin Aga; Humes, Harold L.; Matthiessen, Peter (eds.). "Nelson Algren, the art of fiction no. 11". The Paris Review . 2 (11). Paris, France. ISSN   0031-2037. Archived from the original on 26 September 2010. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Huebner, Jeff (19 November 1998). Baim, Tracy; Hawkins, Karen; Kumar, Sujay (eds.). "Full Nelson: With a little arm twisting, Stuart McCarrell managed to put a memorial to Nelson Algren in the middle of hostile territory". Chicago Reader . Chicago, Illinois, United States of America: Chicago Reader L3C. ISSN   1096-6919. Archived from the original on 26 July 2010. Retrieved 6 August 2021.
  4. Algren, Nelson (2011) [1949]. Savage Jr., William J.; Simon, Daniel (eds.). The Man with the Golden Arm: 50th Anniversary Critical Edition (3rd ed.). New York City, New York, United States of America: Seven Stories Press. ISBN   9781609803599 via Google Books.
  5. "History of the National Book Awards". National Book Foundation: About Us. Retrieved 13 July 2011.
  6. "BOOK PUBLISHERS MAKE 3 AWARDS; Nelson Algren, Dr. Ralph L. Rusk and Dr. W.C. Williams Receive Gold Plaques Special Mention Awards" . Arts. The New York Times . Vol. XCIX, no. 56. 17 March 1950. p. 21. ISSN   0362-4331. OCLC   1645522.
  7. Algren 2011, p. 369, 5. Algren as I Knew Him (Essay by Kurt Vonnegut)
  8. "Nelson Algren Live: The 100th Birthday Celebration". National Book Foundation. 19 February 2009. Retrieved 13 July 2011.
  9. Algren, Nelson (31 March 2006) [2005]. "4. Other Voices [Nelson Algren (1909-1981)]". In Rovit, Earl; Waldhorn, Arthur (eds.). Hemingway and Faulkner in Their Time (2nd ed.). New York City, New York, United States of America: Continuum International Publishing Group. p. 136. ISBN   9780826418258 via Google Books.
  10. 1 2 Royko, Michael (13 May 1981). Hoge Jr., James Fulton (ed.). "Algren's Golden Pen". Chicago Sun-Times . ISSN   1553-8478. Reprinted in The Man with the Golden Arm: 50th Anniversary Critical Edition, pp. 363-365.
  11. 1 2 Algren, Nelson (1 December 2006). "The Colonized Underclass in Nelson Algren's "The Man with the Golden Arm"". In Ward, Robert (ed.). Nelson Algren: A Collection of Critical Essays. Madison, New Jersey, United States of America: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. p. 112. ISBN   9780838641088 . Retrieved 7 August 2021 via Google Books.
  12. Lawrence Lipton (15 December 1957). Rosenthal, Irving (ed.). "A Voyeur's View of the Wild Side: Nelson Algren and His Reviewers" (PDF). Chicago Review . 10 (4). Chicago, Illinois, United States of America: University of Chicago Humanities Division: 4–14. doi:10.2307/25293265. ISSN   0009-3696. JSTOR   25293265 . Retrieved 7 August 2021.The Man with the Golden Arm: 50th Anniversary Critical Edition, pp. 399-408.
  13. Lang Thompson. "THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN ARM". Turner Classic Movies . Retrieved 13 July 2011.
  14. Donohue, H.E.F.; Algren, Nelson (2001) [1963]. "PART II: Algren Vs. Hollywood: Chapter 4. The Con Within the Con". Conversations with Nelson Algren (PDF) (4th ed.). Chicago, Illinois, United States of America: University of Chicago Press. pp. 101–128. ISBN   978-0-226-01383-1 via Internet Archive.
  15. Caplan, Michael (18 May 2009). Dobkin, Jake; Chung, Jen (eds.). "Interview: Filmmaker Michael Caplan". Chicagoist (Interview). Interviewed by Christopher, Rob. Chicago, Illinois, United States of America: Gothamist. Archived from the original on 19 October 2010. Retrieved 7 August 2021.
  16. Ulin, David L. (26 April 2009). Merida, Kevin; Soon-Shiong, Patrick (eds.). "Nelson Algren's legacy ebbs" . Los Angeles Times . Chicago, Illinois, United States of America. ISSN   2165-1736. OCLC   3638237 . Retrieved 7 August 2021.
Awards
New award National Book Award for Fiction
1950
Succeeded by