Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
The Man With the Golden Arm
By Nelson Algren
Seven Stories, 343 pages, $14.95 paper
This novel–featuring such Division Street denizens as card dealer, drummer and druggy Frankie Machine; his whiny, wheelchair-bound wife, Sophie; and the thief named Sparrow–won the first National Book Award in 1950. Read this year’s Algren Award-winning tales and you’ll see how storytelling has evolved in half a century.