Oh man am I bringing a heavy hitter into The Territory this week. I am enormously familiar with his writing as his umbrella of influence spans several generations. His name is Nelson Algren you’d be hard pressed to find a tougher writer in literature. “Brutally honest” is a term that is thrown around too much to describe books and writers. Typically, the term is used by large publications as a mechanism to hype a writer or book to mass market fan base by giving the ego gratifying illusion of obtaining counter culture honesty, or “street cred”, with the purchase the currently hyped book. Jack Kerouac and other “beat” books are marketed in this way and it pays each of Chuck Pahalniuk’s mortgages but “brutally honest” can only go as far as a hype tool with them and not all the way as a description. The book I want to get into is called “A Walk on The Wild Side” and it explores vulnerable and dangerous parts of life that the term “Brutally Honest” requires and yes Lou Reeds famous song is a shout out to it. AWOTWS is about a likable but naive young guy who finds himself among more sophisticated and experienced people, especially women, and one in particular, Hallie Gerard who he finds out to be a prostitute. The young man basically tries to save and rescue her and though is well intentioned, he is one of those people who just doesn’t quite get it. You know the people I’m talking about. The people in front of you in line and can’t find their exact change, the people who get in hype wars with 50 Cent or like Americas situation with the Iraq war. Bono. Oprah. The list goes on. AWOTWS explores people in adverse conditions who wind up doing incredible things that would not have occurred if they hadn’t hadn’t been in extremely adverse conditions. Check out AOWTWS or if the library or book store doesn’t have it, try any of Algren’s many books because all of them are worth the money/time.“Yet once you’ve come to be part of this particular patch, you’ll never love another. Like loving a woman with a broken nose, you may well find lovelier lovelies. But never a lovely so real.”