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Bookie in the Brain. Frankie Machine's world will be as new to most readers as if it were made up of whole fictional cloth. But it exists, and Algren has reproduced it with faithfulness to its speech, smells, gross humor and hopeless squalor. Some of the jailhouse scenes have a chilling Tightness that goes far beyond inspired reporting, and aging, deeply troubled Police Captain Bednar is the most sympathetically understood cop in recent fiction.
The Man with the Golden Arm has its specks of dross, moments when it reads like the late Damon Runyon at his slapdash, sentimental worst. ("She had gone to that bookie in the brain where hustlers' hearts pay off to win, place or show. She had bet her health on a long one and waited each night to be paid off in her turn.") But Algren's ear and sense of pity betray him very seldom. His book has humor as well as heart, and it shows up a rotted piece of U.S. life without indulging in a paragraph of preaching.