A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE

by Nelson Algren ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 21, 1956

The Man With The Golden Arm (1949- and currently making its appearance in moving pictures) proved Algren's pitying, pinpoint view of a lower depths of society; this encompasses Storyville -- the ""wild side"" of New Orleans- and the wild boys who drift to it. Fitz Linkhorn was a wild boy in his time and now spouts the Bible for delighted hecklers in Arroyo, Texas; his son, Byron, is his sharpest critic, while his other son, Dove, barefoot and hulking, is driven to try other horizons. There's Terasina, whose penitence is shattered by her sympathy; there are the trains and the shite towns; there is Kitty Twist and her young knowledge of lawlessness -- this is the route that takes him to Old Perdido Street. Some shady selling jobs, life in the whorehouses, work with a specialized condom maker, panders and pimps, hustlers and ponces, Dove as a stud bum for a brother peepshow -- and Dove, ruined by the vengeance of a legless cripple, returns home --another wild boy who has known the jungles of the depression. What is here is not for that conservative audience which will shock to the ""lewdling"", the people to whom ""hard times is crazying"", the sex crazy and all the blatant fierce cravings, but it is for those to whom a record -- pornographic or no -- of a period and a society has an importance -- and a compassion. Obviously not for the thin skinned.

Pub Date: May 21, 1956

ISBN: 0374525323

Page Count: -

Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Cudahy

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1956

Categories: FICTION