The Devil's Stocking [Hardcover]

Nelson Algren (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1983

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.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

One of the most neglected American writers and also one of the best loved, NELSON ALGREN once wrote that "literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal appartus by conscience in touch with humanity." His writings always lived up to that definition. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 308 pages
• Publisher: Arbor House Pub Co (September 1983)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0877955476
• ISBN-13: 978-0877955474
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,012,467 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Truth Is The First Casualty Of Fiction, February 12, 2011

By 

Steven E. Courtney "just a guy who loves movies" (Tampa, FL) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Devil's Stocking (Paperback)

I have read almost everything Nelson Algren wrote and I've always been a big fan of his. His prose can be taut and terse or imporivsational and jazzy, and when he was good there wasn't a better writer anywhere. This novel, a fictionalization of the life of Ruben "Hurricane" Carter, contains a great deal of thinly disguised factual information, court documents, and personalities surrounding the trial, conviction, release and retrial of Carter for murdering 3 people in a New Jersey bar in 1966. Renamed Ruby Calhoun in this fact-filled fiction, the main character is an enigma, the kind Algren was able to weave successfully in Never Come Morning and The Man With The Golden Arm, but unlike the main characters of those novels it seemed to me that Algren was holding something back this time, that he didn't give Ruby Calhoun quite enough nourishment to become an unforgettable character, flawed but true to himself. Written before Carter was released from jail, the novel ends in a dreamlike cloud of elusive truth and an unsatisfying admission that the one person who could clear him would never be able to, cementing in place the bars Calhoun was tragically put behind.

For me, knowing about the case and its eventual outcome makes it difficult to feel the force of this novel and since I cannot "unknow" what I know it had a diminished impact so I have to admit that I cannot give this novel an unbiased review. The biggest question I have, though, is if Algren was as sure of Carter's innocence as he demonstrates in this novel why didn't he write it as non-fiction? He was certainly no stranger to non-fiction, and frankly his great "novel" period was long over by the time he finished this book (it was published a year or so after his death). I still admire Algren a great deal and the book is worth the time to read, but it lacks the intimacy of his earlier works--the seediness of the location isn't a character as it is in his best novels--it's as if he is truly an outsider trying hard to make an audience sympathize with people he doesn't quite understand or connect with. Forced and a bit artificial.

Regardless of what you may know or think about Ruben Carter, this novel didn't change my mind about the case or my opinion of those involved. Perhaps if it was told with the conviction of a true story instead of as a fiction told with a gasp of hope it might have swayed me. Either way, Ruby Calhoun is not a likeable character in any respect, and as Algren tells it, this shouldn't matter if he were wrongly convicted in a miscarriage of justice. I admire the sentiment but this one didn't have the fire, the rage that it needed to move me as his earlier works have done.