Frankie Machine, a veteran of the Second World War, returns to Chicago's Northwest side with a morphine habit. Nicknamed the 'kid with the golden arm', Frankie is an aspiring drummer by day and an illicit card-dealer by night. In Molly, an old flame, he sees the chance for redemption, for hard work and success - but the demons that chase Frankie are not quite ready to let go.Nelson Algren's critically acclaimed and enormously powerful novel probes the lives of the displaced and dispossessed of post-war America.