The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren

First published: 1949

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Social realism

Time of plot: Late 1940’s

Locale: Chicago

Principal characters

• Francis Majcinek, war veteran, drug addict, and card dealer
• Sophie, his wife
• Molly Novotny, his mistress
• Drunkie John, Molly’s former boyfriend
• Sparrow Saltskin, a gambling room steerer
• Louie Fomorowsky, a drug dealer
• Stash Koskoska, an icehouse worker
• Violet, Stash’s wife
• Zero Schwiefka, a gambling room owner

The Story:

Twenty-nine-year-old Francis Majcinek, known as Frankie Machine because of his skill in dealing cards, is wounded in World War II, deployed to a hospital with shrapnel in his liver, and sent home for discharge. During his hospitalization, large doses of morphine control his pain. He becomes hooked on drugs, which he has to take regularly to function.

Frankie’s relationship to his wife, Sophie, has never been a healthy one. While dating her, he had told her that he needed his freedom. To keep him, Sophie had lied that she was pregnant. A guilt-ridden Frankie, nineteen years of age at the time, married her. The marriage deteriorated dramatically when Sophie incurred injuries in an accident caused by Frankie’s drunk driving.

Sophie is permanently disabled, suffering from paralysis that her doctors say has no physical basis. Frankie, again guilt-ridden, is trapped in a loveless relationship. Seeing no way out, he endures a life of futility, scrounging for drug money and dealing cards at Zero Schwiefka’s establishment, where, before his military service, he had gained a reputation as a top dealer.

Sparrow Saltskin, who steers gamblers to Frankie’s table, has great admiration for his deftness with cards and, during Frankie’s absence in the service, longed for his return. He did not know, when Frankie came home, that Frankie was addicted to drugs, that he had a “monkey on his back,” as members of the drug culture say.

Frankie’s drug supplier, Nifty Louie Fomorowsky, is dedicated to helping Frankie’s monkey grow. Nifty Louie uses every possible ploy to feed the monkey. He helps Frankie graduate from morphine to a broader panoply of drugs. Frankie’s frustration and the guilt that defines his relationship to his wife make him an apt candidate for a huge monkey.

Among those occupying Frankie’s world are Stash Koskoska and his wife, Violet, or Vi, a sexy woman considerably younger than her husband. Stash labors in an icehouse so he can bring Vi bread and sausages that are on sale. While Stash is working, Vi stuffs these goodies into Sparrow, with whom she is having an affair. Vi also attends to Sophie, cleaning her apartment for her and taking her on outings to double features at the motion-picture theater.

Among the neighborhood bars is the Tug and Maul, a gathering place for a variety of motley characters. Across the street from the Tug and Maul is the Safari, a sleazy club with an upstairs room in which Nifty Louie gives the community junkies their fixes, regularly adjusting the dosage to keep the addicts coming, and paying, for ever-increasing hits.

Molly Novotny, approximately twenty years of age, is the nubile girlfriend of Drunkie John, a never-sober habitué of the Tug and Maul, until he dumps her. She then falls into the welcoming arms of Frankie Machine, with whom she forms a continuing relationship. It takes a quarter-grain fix to feed Frankie’s monkey at this time.

The Sparrow-Stash-Violet love triangle grows increasingly complicated. Sparrow spends as much time jailed for petty crimes as he spends free. Frankie’s life takes an ugly turn when he catches Louie cheating in a card game with the Umbrella Man, a Tug and Maul fixture. He exposes Louie, who retaliates by upping the price of the drugs Frankie needs to stay steady enough to deal.

The bad feelings between the two grow until, in a back alley, Frankie, badly in need of a fix, interlocks the fingers of his hands to control their shaking and, in an impassioned moment, brings them down on Louie’s neck while he is bending over to pick up Frankie’s lucky silver dollar, which Sparrow had dropped deliberately. Louie dies instantly.

Frankie and Sparrow concoct an alibi that shifts suspicion from them. Others in the neighborhood fall under suspicion when they show unexpected signs of affluence. Then Frankie and Sparrow steal some electric irons from a department store. Sparrow flees, but Frankie is caught and imprisoned for the theft.

While Frankie is incarcerated, a feisty prison doctor gets him off drugs, helping him to make the long trip “from monkey to zero” as Frankie calls it. When he returns to the street, however, he reverts to his old ways, even though Molly Novotny, to whom he has confessed murdering Louie, intermittently helps him to control his drug habit. He needs drugs to give him the steady hands dealers require.

Police captain Bednar is setting up a sting operation in which Sparrow will sell drugs to Frankie while hidden police officers watch. When the drugs are passed, both men are arrested. Frankie, as a user rather than a pusher, is released. Sparrow is detained.

Frankie hides out for three weeks with Molly, whom Drunkie John has been blackmailing. When John comes to the apartment, an angry Frankie orders him to leave. An equally angry John calls the police, who shoot Frankie’s heel as he flees to a flophouse where, cornered by the police and realizing the futility of running, he hangs himself. Molly Novotny, Antek Witwicki, and the investigating officer offer the final report on Frankie’s life and death, presented as a witness sheet of the State of Illinois in a question-answer format. The book’s epitaph is the poem “The Man with the Golden Arm.”

Bibliography

Algren, Nelson. The Man with the Golden Arm. Edited by William J. Savage, Jr., and Daniel Simon. New York: Seven Stories Press, 1999. In addition to the text of the novel, this fiftieth anniversary edition features essays about Algren and his work, as well as a letter in which Algren describes the genesis of the novel. Some of the essays are previously published remembrances of Algren and analyses of his work that appeared in the 1950’s. Some of the other essays about Algren’s work were commissioned for this book, as was a photo essay on Algren.

Beauvoir, Simone de. America Day by Day. Translated by Patrick Dudley [pseud.]. London: Duckworth, 1952. This book, which displeased Algren, contains considerable detail about the genesis of The Man with the Golden Arm, which Algren had nearly completed when he went on an extended trip with Beauvoir to New Orleans, Mexico, and Guatemala.

Cox, Martha Heasley, and Wayne Chatterton. Nelson Algren. Boston: Twayne, 1975. Based on material from Algren’s letters to and interviews with the authors, who did exhaustive research for this book. Covers Algren’s career to 1970. Accurate, well written, and thorough.

Donohue, H. E. F. Conversations with Nelson Algren. New York: Hill & Wang, 1964. Extensive interviews from 1962 and 1963 provide detailed information about Algren’s background, childhood, and early years. Valuable discussion of Algren’s wanderings after his graduation from the University of Illinois in 1931.

Drew, Bettina. Nelson Algren. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1989. Detailed, authoritative critical biography of Algren, covering his life up to his death in 1981. Much of the book is based on the extensive collection of Algren’s papers at Ohio State University, to which Drew had full access.

Giles, James. “The Harsh Compassion of Nelson Algren.” Introduction to The Man with the Golden Arm, by Nelson Algren. New York: Four Walls Eight Windows Press, 1990. Provides valuable insights into the pervasive comic element in Algren’s writing.

Horvath, Brooke. Understanding Nelson Algren. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2005. Features a brief introduction to Algren’s life and work, as well as a detailed analysis of The Man with the Golden Arm. Horvath examines Algren’s literary style, including his lyricism and humor, as well as the social and political concerns expressed in his work.

Ward, Robert, ed. Nelson Algren: A Collection of Critical Essays. Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2007. Two of the essays focus on the novel: “Making Nakedness Visible: Narrative Perspective in Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm” and “Textual Outlaws: The Colonized Underclass in Nelson Algren’s The Man with the Golden Arm.”