What do you think?
Rate this book
The Devil's Stocking
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 which 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.
- GenresLiteratureFiction
316 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1983
6 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Nelson Algren
65 books289 followersPeople note American writer Nelson Algren for his novels, including
The Man with the Golden Arm
(1949), about the pride and longings of impoverished people.
Born of Swedish-immigrant parents, Nelson Ahlgren Abraham moved at an early age to Chicago. At University of Illinois, he studied journalism. His experiences as a migrant worker during the Depression provided the material for his first Somebody in Boots (1935). Throughout life, Algren identified with the underdog. From 1936 to 1940, the high-point of left-wing ideas on the literary scene of the United States, he served as editor of the project in Illinois. After putting the finishing touches to his second, he in 1942 joined and enlisted for the war. Never Come Morning received universal acclaim and eventually sold more than a million copies.
A dark naturalist style of Algren passionately records the details of trapped urban existence with flashes of melancholy poetry. He characterizes the lowlife drifters, whores, junkies, and barflies of row. He records the bravado of their colloquial language and lays their predicament bare.
Born of Swedish-immigrant parents, Nelson Ahlgren Abraham moved at an early age to Chicago. At University of Illinois, he studied journalism. His experiences as a migrant worker during the Depression provided the material for his first Somebody in Boots (1935). Throughout life, Algren identified with the underdog. From 1936 to 1940, the high-point of left-wing ideas on the literary scene of the United States, he served as editor of the project in Illinois. After putting the finishing touches to his second, he in 1942 joined and enlisted for the war. Never Come Morning received universal acclaim and eventually sold more than a million copies.
A dark naturalist style of Algren passionately records the details of trapped urban existence with flashes of melancholy poetry. He characterizes the lowlife drifters, whores, junkies, and barflies of row. He records the bravado of their colloquial language and lays their predicament bare.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 18, 2008
My first read of Algren -- before this knew him only as Simone de Beauvoir's other boyfriend. As much as I enjoy the existentialists, it was a pleasant surprise that Algren wasn't bent that way at all. Devil's Stocking is a deeply moral book, grave, and offers an excellent portal on racial injustice as it stood in the 60's. Interesting dissection of sex work as well, and most hauntingly the effectiveness of the prison system as an instrument of oppression. Good news: criminal justice system not as openly racist as 40 years ago. Bad news: Wars on Drugs/Crimes have expanded the franchise of the prisons. Very, very bad news.
It seems like greater Los Angeles has grown more violent in just the last year that I've been here; last week the police gunned down three innocents from within their squad car because they heard gunfire from somewhere, there was a high school riot involving hundreds (that's right, hundreds) of kids, I watched a security video the other night of an armed robber killing a store clerk in the act of emptying the till for him -- shot her three times, point blank. But we don't see any of this up here where I live, it's all giant purses and Bentleys (yep) and I can understand where paranoia is born.
The book felt a lot like homework much of the time, due I think the Algren's choppy narrative style. The prose itself is pretty straightforward, but the action moves quickly, interrupted often by summary observations and conclusions of the characters. It reminded me a lot of Brecht, and the few moments where Algren paused in detail therefore stood out in striking and unforgettable contrast.
It seems like greater Los Angeles has grown more violent in just the last year that I've been here; last week the police gunned down three innocents from within their squad car because they heard gunfire from somewhere, there was a high school riot involving hundreds (that's right, hundreds) of kids, I watched a security video the other night of an armed robber killing a store clerk in the act of emptying the till for him -- shot her three times, point blank. But we don't see any of this up here where I live, it's all giant purses and Bentleys (yep) and I can understand where paranoia is born.
The book felt a lot like homework much of the time, due I think the Algren's choppy narrative style. The prose itself is pretty straightforward, but the action moves quickly, interrupted often by summary observations and conclusions of the characters. It reminded me a lot of Brecht, and the few moments where Algren paused in detail therefore stood out in striking and unforgettable contrast.
June 16, 2022
Normally, you think of Nelson Algren as writing in the 1940s and '50s, about the '30s and '40s. Like his peer John Steinbeck, he was fundamentally shaped by the hard times and injustice of the Great Depression and the Second World War, and by a rather loose association with the pre-War Communist Party, which left both men outsiders in the 1950s and separated them from later authors of the same caliber like John Updike and Philip Roth, who had very different formative experiences. It's easy to forget that Algren outlived, for example, John Lennon and Sid Vicious; when he died, Bruce Springsteen had released most of his best work and Kathy Acker was at the height of her powers. That's a very different era. This final novel, published posthumously in 1982 with the help of his friend Kurt Vonnegut, was a return to the novel as a form for Algren, following more than two decades of sulking in self-perceived irrelevance and describing himself as a "journalist" in order to deflect the charge that he was wasting his talent.
The Devil's Stocking is at once similar to Algren's previous novels, and at the same time jarringly different in tone and content, reflecting both a more mature writer -- both more self-assured and, at the same time, less passionate -- and a very different era, in terms of cultural zeitgeist and of what even the kind of publisher who signs Nelson Algren was willing to put in print. Here, you've got Black protagonists -- indeed, an almost entirely Black cast of characters; gay characters (albeit closeted ones); gay Black characters; The Nation of Islam; Attica; 1970s pirate radio references; shameless mockery of Bob Dylan; and much more. At the same time, you have the more standard Algren sex worker characters -- this time informed by patronizing Chinatown brothels rather than New Deal-funded social work outreach; dialog lifted directly from exchanges among various real-world lowlifes; and of course an ending where, without spoiling it, all suddenly comes undone. The writing style is, to some extent, less poetic and more journalistic than his other work: you can't imagine that this was re-written, chapter by chapter, through dozens of drafts, the way The Man with the Golden Arm was. But it is clear and to the point -- the style of a man who knows that he is a good writer and is going to write the story because he knows it matters.
So, this is Nelson Algren writing in the '80s about the '60s and '70s. In some ways, it's a return to an earlier and more idealistic era for Algren -- in his John Reed Club youth, still thinking that his writing could make a direct difference in the world and motivated by his ultimately correct perception that Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the real-world boxer who inspired the novel, had been wrongfully convicted. Algren would not live to see Carter's conviction finally overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, but his instincts for the helpless, the broken and the unjustly done over were clearly strong right to the end of his life, and The Devil's Stocking is as good a note as any for him to have gone out on -- not his most brilliant work, but far from his worst, and fully in keeping with that he stood for when he was at his best.
The Devil's Stocking is at once similar to Algren's previous novels, and at the same time jarringly different in tone and content, reflecting both a more mature writer -- both more self-assured and, at the same time, less passionate -- and a very different era, in terms of cultural zeitgeist and of what even the kind of publisher who signs Nelson Algren was willing to put in print. Here, you've got Black protagonists -- indeed, an almost entirely Black cast of characters; gay characters (albeit closeted ones); gay Black characters; The Nation of Islam; Attica; 1970s pirate radio references; shameless mockery of Bob Dylan; and much more. At the same time, you have the more standard Algren sex worker characters -- this time informed by patronizing Chinatown brothels rather than New Deal-funded social work outreach; dialog lifted directly from exchanges among various real-world lowlifes; and of course an ending where, without spoiling it, all suddenly comes undone. The writing style is, to some extent, less poetic and more journalistic than his other work: you can't imagine that this was re-written, chapter by chapter, through dozens of drafts, the way The Man with the Golden Arm was. But it is clear and to the point -- the style of a man who knows that he is a good writer and is going to write the story because he knows it matters.
So, this is Nelson Algren writing in the '80s about the '60s and '70s. In some ways, it's a return to an earlier and more idealistic era for Algren -- in his John Reed Club youth, still thinking that his writing could make a direct difference in the world and motivated by his ultimately correct perception that Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the real-world boxer who inspired the novel, had been wrongfully convicted. Algren would not live to see Carter's conviction finally overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, but his instincts for the helpless, the broken and the unjustly done over were clearly strong right to the end of his life, and The Devil's Stocking is as good a note as any for him to have gone out on -- not his most brilliant work, but far from his worst, and fully in keeping with that he stood for when he was at his best.
May 17, 2020
Algren’s last novel is an uneasy mix of his usual schtick concerning the shenanigans of whores and various lowlifes and a series of transcripts from a real murder trial. It’s not an especially compelling marriage but he’s always worth a read nonetheless.
Read
October 17, 2009Noteworthy as Algren's last novel, but nothing special. Worthwhile for Algren fans, not the first of his works I'd reach for.
September 4, 2021
Another fantastic outing; Algren managed to hold a firm grasp on his immense talent right until the end.
June 4, 2021
Nelson Algren="The bard of the stumblebum".
Mostly a retelling of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's story.
Mostly a retelling of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter's story.
January 30, 2021
I’m a huge Algren fan but this wasn’t one of my favorites. The plot didn’t seem to have the urgency of Neon Wilderness or Never Come Morning or Man with the Golden Arm.
May 12, 2022
This book is loosely based on the story of Hurricane Carter and his fight for justice. I say loosely because he changed names and added characters. There were also other story lines going on that gave you an idea of 60s Paterson, New Jersey was like. Definitely character studies worth looking into.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews