The Interview: 

Biographer Colin Asher, discusses the legacy of one of the greatest unknown American writers, Nelson Algren, a pre-Beat Generation realist who also took the Underground Man to new heights in the 1930s thru the 1970s, writing from the working man and woman’s perspective in Chicago and elsewhere. Here, he discusses his definitive biography, Never A Lovely So Real (Norton).

The Reading: 

Original compositions by Ken Vandermark with Nelson Algren reading The Man with the Golden Arm in the 1970s, unearthed by Mr. Asher. 

Music: featured in the in the introduction by Ken Vandermark and additional music by Aaron Copland