A Walk on the Wild Side (1956) - Nelson Algren

Written by Nelson Algren
Read by Keith Szarabajka
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 56 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
Release date: December 17, 2009
Duration: 10:42:12

With its depictions of the downtrodden prostitutes, bootleggers, and hustlers of Perdido Street in the old French Quarter of 1930s New Orleans, A Walk on the Wild Side found a place in the imaginations of all the generations that have followed.

“I found my way to the streets on the other side of the Southern Pacific station, where the big jukes were singing something called ‘Walking the Wild Side of Life,’” wrote Algren. “I’ve stayed pretty much on that side of the curb ever since.”

Perhaps the author’s own words describe this classic work best: “The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind.”

Alas, nowadays when people hear this book title, they think of the Lou Reed song–inspired by the Algren novel–or the movie with Laurence Harvey, a decimation of the book. That’s why it’s great to finally have a definitive audio version. Algren’s crazy pastiche of Texas Panhandle down-and-outers seems especially fresh today, more than five decades after its debut. His freewheeling style and use of vernacular are channeled by narrator Keith Szarabajka, who breathes life into colorful losers like Kitty Twist and the legless Achilles Schmidt. Those who enjoy the sparse regional styles of John Steinbeck and Anne Proulx will especially enjoy this production. Headphones listeners: The shouting sermons of Fitz Linkhorn, though mesmerizing, are a little too loud. R.W.S. (c) AudioFile 2010,

Like good music? If you can, get hold of the Elmer Bernstein Jazz score for the movie.

Another Nelson Algren novel that was filmed and has a great jazz score by Elmer Bernstein, Man With the Golden Arm.