A Walk on the Wild Side, Nelson Algren
A Walk on the Wild Side, Nelson Algren
1 Rating(s)
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A Walk on the Wild Side

Author: Nelson Algren

Narrator: Keith Szarabajka

Unabridged: 10 hr 42 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/17/2009

Synopsis

With its depictions of the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers, and hustlers of Perdido Street in the old French Quarter of 1930s New Orleans, A Walk in the Wild Side has found a place in the imaginations of all generations since it first appeared. As Algren admitted, the book "wasn't written until long after it had been walked . . . I found my way to the streets on the other side of the Southern Pacific station, where the big jukes were singing something called 'Walking the Wild Side of Life.' I've stayed pretty much on that side of the curb ever since." Perhaps the author's own words describe this classic work best: "The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind."

About Nelson Algren

Nelson Algren (1909–1981), now considered one of America’s finest novelists, was born in Detroit and lived most of his life in Chicago. His jobs included migrant worker, journalist, and medical worker. He is the author of five novels, including The Man with the Golden Arm, which was the winner of the first National Book Award.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Dave on August 06, 2017

Walk on the Wild Side, Lou Reed: [URL not allowed] "Mr. Algren, boy, you are good."-- Ernest Hemingway Walk on the Wild Side is set in Perdido Street in the old French Quarter of depression-era New Orleans. With its depictions of an array of prostitutes, bootleggers, and hustlers......more

Goodreads review by Ethan on November 19, 2012

An amazing and beautiful ride! It would seem that Algren's name no longer rings in the counter culture lit canon the way that writers like Kerouac, Hunter S Thompson, Hubert Selby Jr, Bukowski, Pynchon and Burroughs do though you can find elements of all these writers by chance or by influence in Wa......more

Goodreads review by The Literary on March 03, 2014

If you like your characters damaged and your prose poetic, this is the book for you. No author does it better.......more

Goodreads review by David on June 16, 2013

Nelson Algren's novel relates the adventures of Dove Linkhorn, an illiterate young man who leaves poverty and a failed love affair behind him to wander the countryside. He has many adventures along the way until he settles for a time in New Orleans, where he will experience happiness and great trage......more

Goodreads review by Derek on January 31, 2021

I greatly enjoyed the book’s picaresque plot, fascinatingly washed up characters, linguistic virtuosity, and local flavor. The book says as much about the atmosphere of the Great Depression as Grapes of Wrath and is much more entertaining.......more

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