The Last Carousel
Will be published approx. on 20. January 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
448 pages
978-1-64421-483-1 (ISBN)
Description
A newly designed edition of one of the most worldly collections in Nelson Algren’s repertoire with a new introduction by Colin Asher.
"Algren at the top of his form."—New York Times
The fiction and reportage included in The Last Carousel, the last of Nelson Algren’s works published during his lifetime, was written on ships and in ports of call around the world—from boxing matches and brothels to gambling tables and horse races to reminiscences of Algren’s beloved Chicago White Sox. In this collection, not just Algren’s intensity but his diverse range of interests are revealed and celebrated through his gritty and unabridged accounts of the vagabond lifestyle.
"Algren at the top of his form."—New York Times
The fiction and reportage included in The Last Carousel, the last of Nelson Algren’s works published during his lifetime, was written on ships and in ports of call around the world—from boxing matches and brothels to gambling tables and horse races to reminiscences of Algren’s beloved Chicago White Sox. In this collection, not just Algren’s intensity but his diverse range of interests are revealed and celebrated through his gritty and unabridged accounts of the vagabond lifestyle.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
367 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-64421-483-1 (9781644214831)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
One of the most neglected of modern American authors and also one of the best loved, NELSON ALGREN (1909–1981) believed that “literature is made upon any occasion that a challenge is put to the legal apparatus by conscience in touch with humanity.” Recipient of the first National Book Award for Fiction and lauded by Hemingway as “one of the two best authors in America,” Algren remains among the most defiant and enduring novelists. His work includes five major novels, including Somebody in Boots (1935), Never Come Morning (1945), The Man with the Golden Arm (1949), two short fiction collections, The Neon Wilderness (1947) and The Last Carousel (1973), a book-length prose-poem, Chicago: City on the Make (1951), and several collections of reportage. Algren died on May 9, 1981, within days of his appointment as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
COLIN ASHER is the author of Never a Lovely so Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren (W.W. Norton, 2019), a literary biography written as a work of creative nonfiction. His writing has appeared in The Believer, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, and many other publications.
COLIN ASHER is the author of Never a Lovely so Real: The Life and Work of Nelson Algren (W.W. Norton, 2019), a literary biography written as a work of creative nonfiction. His writing has appeared in The Believer, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, and many other publications.
Content
Dark Came Early in That Country
Could World War I Have Been a Mistake? Otto Preminger’s Strange Suspenjers
I Never Hollered Cheezit the Cops
The Mad Laundress of Dingdong-Daddyland
The Leak That Defied the Books
Tinkle Hinkle and the Footnote King
Hand in Hand Through the Greenery
with the grabstand clowns of arts and letters
Come In If You Love Money
Brave Bulls of Sidi Yahya
I Know They’ll Like Me in Saigon
Airy Persiflage on the Heaving Deep
No Cumshaw No Rickshaw
Letter from Saigon
What Country Do You Think You’re In?
Police and Mama-sans Get It All
Poor Girls of Kowloon
After the Buffalo
The Cortez Gang
The House of the Hundred Grassfires
Previous Days
Epitaph: The Man with the Golden Arm
The Passion of Upside-Down-Emil
A Story from Life’s Other Side
Merry Christmas Mr. Mark
I Guess You Fellows Just Don’t Want Me
Everything Inside Is a Penny
The Ryebread Trees of Spring
Different Clowns for Different Towns
Go! Go! Go! Forty Years Ago
Ballet for Opening Day:
The Swede Was a Hard Guy
A Ticket on Skoronski
Ode to an Absconding Bookie
Bullring of the Summer Night
Moon of the Arfy Darfy
Watch Out for Daddy
The Last Carousel
Tricks Out of Times Long Gone
Could World War I Have Been a Mistake? Otto Preminger’s Strange Suspenjers
I Never Hollered Cheezit the Cops
The Mad Laundress of Dingdong-Daddyland
The Leak That Defied the Books
Tinkle Hinkle and the Footnote King
Hand in Hand Through the Greenery
with the grabstand clowns of arts and letters
Come In If You Love Money
Brave Bulls of Sidi Yahya
I Know They’ll Like Me in Saigon
Airy Persiflage on the Heaving Deep
No Cumshaw No Rickshaw
Letter from Saigon
What Country Do You Think You’re In?
Police and Mama-sans Get It All
Poor Girls of Kowloon
After the Buffalo
The Cortez Gang
The House of the Hundred Grassfires
Previous Days
Epitaph: The Man with the Golden Arm
The Passion of Upside-Down-Emil
A Story from Life’s Other Side
Merry Christmas Mr. Mark
I Guess You Fellows Just Don’t Want Me
Everything Inside Is a Penny
The Ryebread Trees of Spring
Different Clowns for Different Towns
Go! Go! Go! Forty Years Ago
Ballet for Opening Day:
The Swede Was a Hard Guy
A Ticket on Skoronski
Ode to an Absconding Bookie
Bullring of the Summer Night
Moon of the Arfy Darfy
Watch Out for Daddy
The Last Carousel
Tricks Out of Times Long Gone