The Devil's Stocking

“This is a man writing and you should not read it if you cannot take a punch. . . . Mr. Algren, boy, you are good.”—Ernest Hemingway

“Algren is an artist whose sympathy is as large as Victor Hugo’s, an artist who ranks . . . among our best American authors.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“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 of the past, but nonetheless genuinely warm and alive. The story is recognizable as belonging 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.”—The New York Times Book Review

The Devil’s Stocking is the story of Ruby Calhoun, a boxer accused of murder in a shadowy world of low-purse fighters, cops, con artists, and bar girls. Chronicling a battle for truth and human dignity that gives way to a larger story of life-and-death decisions, literary grandmaster Nelson Algren’s last novel is a fitting capstone to a long and brilliant career.

Nelson Algren (1909–1981) wrote of the despised urban underbelly of America before it was fashionable to do so and still stands as one of our 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.